According to Black’s Law Dictionary, “incorporation by reference” is defined as “the act of including a second document within another document by only mentioning the second document.” This practice is a staple of public filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, and in fact, the SEC proposed rules on Jan. 2, 2018 to eliminate “redundancies in rules governing incorporation by reference.” See also 17 C.F.R. 240.12b-23 (set of certain rules). The phrase is also a staple of trust and estates law, going back to common law, and is specifically referenced in a provision of the Freedom of Information Act.

Fast forward to 2018. For instance, incorporating by reference is considered now essential to limiting or broadening e-discovery in litigation and arbitration alike. As incorporation by reference is an integral concept in “traditional” contracts, so too is it in software, hardware, cloud computing and myriad other digital age agreements. You name a category and there’s a good chance the concept has been incorporated by reference into such agreements.