Eastern District of Texas

The Truth Behind Patent Trolls

The Eastern District of Texas is located in the Fifth Circuit of the United States Court of Appeals. Patent claims in this district are appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.

Marshall, Texas, located in the Eastern District of Texas, has become "the unlikely patent litigation capital of America" (Texas Monthly) and has gained a reputation for being a "rocket docket" for patent cases. (MIT Technology Review) However, this "rocket docket" claim is no longer true, as it takes two to three years on average for a patent suit to reach trial in the Eastern District of Texas, compared to around a year in Eastern Virginia. (Ars Technica) In 2002, 32 patent lawsuits were filed in the Eastern District. (New York Times) In 2015, the Eastern District of Texas received 2,540 patent litigation cases. This constitutes 43.6% of all patent litigation cases filed in the United States, which is more than the cases of all districts outside the top three combined (41.9%). (Lex Machina) According to PricewaterhouseCoopers, the percentage of patent litigation cases in the most active districts continues to increase, leading to increased concentrations of patent litigation in certain districts of the United States. From 2012 to 2015, 4,350 patent lawsuits were filed with Judge Rodney Gilstrap, which was 3,000 more cases than were filed with the next highest judge.

PricewaterhouseCoopers statistics show that the Eastern District of Texas had 55 decisions in 2015 involving non-practicing entities (NPEs) as patent holders, which was the most in the country, and 49 percent of NPEs were successful in their patent litigation cases, which is almost double the national average of 26 percent.

The huge increase in patent litigation in 2015 was caused in part by the rise of high-volume plaintiffs, or patent owners that file at least 10 cases in a calendar year. (Lex Machina)