Confidential and public versions are a production discipline, and the place 337 productions most often come apart.

Nearly every substantive filing in a Section 337 investigation exists twice: a confidential version and a public version with the business information removed. Both are filed electronically through EDIS, on a schedule that leaves no time to rebuild a version somebody got wrong.

The failure is almost never a single bad redaction. It is inconsistency — the same figure redacted in one exhibit and visible in another, because two people made the call weeks apart with no record of the first decision.

What consistency actually requires

• A redaction log recording what was designated, on what basis, and where else the same information appears
• A single decision per category of information, applied across every document rather than per document
• Public versions QC’d against their confidential counterparts before filing, not after someone notices
• Verification that redacted text is actually removed rather than visually covered, because a black box over selectable text is not a redaction
• The same discipline applied to exhibits, demonstratives and witness statements, which are frequently prepared by different people later in the matter

Production mechanics on a compressed schedule

Rolling production is the norm here because a single end-loaded production leaves no room to fix a specification error, and specification errors are normal. Volumes go out on a schedule set backward from the dates in the procedural schedule, each one QC’d against the production specification before release.

The specification itself comes from the ALJ’s ground rules rather than a Commission-wide standard, which is why reading them before processing matters more in this forum than in district court. Format, numbering, designation conventions and family handling are all decided there.

Where foreign language material complicates it

On a docket where respondents are frequently in China, Taiwan, Korea or Japan, a meaningful share of the production is not in English. A translated document produced with its source has to carry the same Bates relationship, the same confidential designation and the same redactions as the original — and the redaction has to be applied correctly in both.

We handle translation and production as one workflow for exactly that reason. Translated documents arrive in the production set with metadata, numbering and designations intact, with certified translation and a signed certificate of accuracy for anything filed or put to a witness.

What we deliver

Pro-Legal Services provides Section 337 document production from Arlington, Virginia, five miles from the Commission: ESI processing, CBI redaction and public version preparation with redaction logging, rolling production to the ALJ’s ground rules, load file preparation and testing, legal document scanning and blowbacks, certified translation and foreign language document review, and hearing exhibits.

We work for complainants and respondents and we have supported ITC matters since 1999. In a forum where the target date does not move, a production that has to be redone is not a quality problem. It is a schedule problem.

Related: ITC Section 337 litigation support, confidential business information redaction, ITC hearing exhibits, defensible production, load file preparation, Section 337 translation services, ESI processing, defective document production.

Pro-Legal Services, Inc. provides Section 337 document production and CBI redaction from Arlington, Virginia, minutes from the U.S. International Trade Commission, for law firms in Washington DC, Maryland, Virginia and nationwide.

Production schedule set and public versions due? Send us the ground rules and the designation conventions you have been using. We will QC what has gone out and build the rest to one consistent standard. Pro-Legal Services, Inc. · 1550 Wilson Blvd, Suite 250, Arlington, VA 22209 · 202-955-9400 · info@pro-legal.com