The AI provisions reflect the parties’ agreement, and entry alone should not be described as judicial endorsement of each listed product.

A protective order can preserve access to useful AI tools while protecting discovery. In Corent Technology, Inc. v. Amazon Web Services, Inc., No. 8:26-cv-00194, 2026 WL 2924482 (C.D. Cal. Sept. 26, 2026), the parties negotiated provisions allowing specified enterprise tools and case-specific AI workspaces, subject to restrictions on training, access and deletion. For legal departments, the order offers a concrete starting point for deciding how counsel and experts may use AI with litigation materials.

The stipulated protective order in Corent governs pretrial discovery in patent litigation; it does not decide infringement or validate an AI system’s accuracy. The AI provisions reflect the parties’ agreement, and entry alone should not be described as judicial endorsement of each listed product. Amazon expressly limited its agreement to this matter. Id. at *13 n.1. (“Amazon agrees to this provision on the use of AI tools for the purposes of the above-captioned matter only.”)

Permission Depends on the Service and Its Configuration

Section 12 reaches all defined discovery material, including material without a confidentiality designation. It requires an enterprise or commercial subscription, limits vendor access and third-party disclosure, and restricts model training and retention. Counsel must retain written vendor documentation before use and produce it within five business days of a written request. See id. at *13-15. A subscription label alone is insufficient.

The parties conditionally preapproved several tools, including Microsoft Copilot, Westlaw AI and CoCounsel, Harvey, Claude and Legora. Their listed configurations can be used without the separate advance-notice procedure. See id. at *15-16. These provisions describe what the parties accepted under the order; they do not establish that every current account or deployment of those products complies.

For other tools processing the opposing party’s material, notice must identify the tool, version and operator, the categories of material and supporting compliance documentation at least seven business days before first use. The producing party has five business days to object specifically. A timely objection triggers a meet and confer within three business days; an unresolved dispute prevents use until the court rules. See id. at *15. This creates a practical reason to settle tool access before a deadline makes the objection process disruptive.

A Case Workspace Can Retain Context Without Training the Model

The most useful drafting distinction appears in Section 12.7.2. The order permits retention within a workspace dedicated to the litigation for follow-up queries, retrieval-augmented generation and related analysis. That permission depends on keeping the material within the matter, avoiding underlying model updates and complying with deletion requirements. See id. at *16. Thus, discovery and derived outputs must remain segregated from unrelated matters.

That distinction matters when negotiating an order. A prohibition on retaining any material beyond a single session could disable the continuing document analysis the parties intend to permit. Counsel should specify whether the restriction concerns model training, vendor retention, the case workspace or all three. Each addresses a different use of the material.

Source Code Remains Outside the Permission

The order absolutely prohibits AI processing of material designated “highly confidential—source code,” including electronic excerpts and printed copies, regardless of vendor protections. See id. at *15. Thus, for example, an approved platform cannot be used to summarize a protected code excerpt. Counsel must carry that restriction into expert instructions and document handling.

The order also requires contractual deletion rights covering uploaded discovery and generated outputs. Following the defined conclusion of the action, the receiving party must take reasonable deletion steps within 14 days for protected material uploaded or output, and provide certification and documentation of reasonable steps to delete uploaded discovery within 60 days. See id. at *14. This is a documented process obligation; the certification does not purport to independently audit every vendor system.

What Legal and IP Departments Should Do Now

Identify the Intended Uses Before Negotiating

Ask counsel and experts which tasks require AI and which categories of discovery they expect to process. Decide deliberately whether the restrictions should extend to all discovery or only designated material.

Approve Configurations with Evidence

For proposed tools, obtain the governing contract and data-processing terms, confirm relevant settings, and identify who will maintain that evidence. Avoid copying another case’s product list without checking the deployment your team will use.

Preserve the Functions the Litigation Needs

Address case-specific retention separately from training and cross-matter reuse. State which workspaces, users and outputs are covered, and decide whether source code requires a complete exclusion or a different negotiated procedure.

Make Notice and Deletion Workable

Build notice periods into the discovery calendar. Assign responsibility for objections, vendor deletion requests and certifications. Reconcile AI deletion terms with archival provisions and any applicable preservation obligations before seeking entry of the order.

Conclusion

The above are merely recommendations when negotiating and stipulating to provisions in a protective order in discovery and are not absolute requirements imposed on litigants outside of Corent. The needs of litigants will vary depending on the nature of the case and the extent of production that is required (e.g., confidential, proprietary or private information requiring special protection from public disclosure). The order’s value is its specificity: It makes permitted AI use concrete enough for counsel to implement and for the parties to enforce. Legal departments considering similar terms should insist on that level of operational detail before discovery enters any AI system.

For More Information

If you have any questions about this Alert, please contact Samuel W. Apicelli, Brandon A. Chan, Ph.D., any of the attorneys in our Intellectual Property Practice Group or the attorney in the firm with whom you are regularly in contact.

Disclaimer: This Alert has been prepared and published for informational purposes only and is not offered, nor should be construed, as legal advice. For more information, please see the firm's full disclaimer.