

Texas Judge Leaves His Patent 'Rocket Docket' to Practice Law - sehugg
http://www.law.com/jsp/cc/PubArticleCC.jsp?id=1202518061641&Texas_Judge_Leaves_His_Patent_Rocket_Docket_to_Practice_Law

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wpietri
I'm fascinated by their argument that the court is fair because plaintiff and
defendant wins were about even now. I know nothing about the caseload, but
does that make any sense?

If his district is seen as plaintiff-friendly, then those with the weakest
cases would have the strongest incentive to file there. And I would expect
patent trolls to be high-volume filers because their targets would be more
likely to flip the bird during negotiations.

So I wouldn't a priori expect 50/50 outcomes to be a sign of fairness.
Depending on caseload, I'd expect that as a sign of pro-plaintiff bias. If I'm
a troll filing a lot of claims, 50/50 outcomes sounds like a reason to file as
many as possible.

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tzs
In a perfectly fair court, plaintiffs would win the majority of patent cases,
for the simple reason that it is plaintiffs who make the decision to file, and
even after they file suit they can dismiss the suit at any time and settle.
Hence, many cases that would be losers for the plaintiff won't even make it to
court--the patent owner's strategy with a weak patent is to go for licensing
deals and avoid trials.

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guelo
This is great news. Republicans are blocking all of Obama's nominations so it
will take a while to even replace this guy (there are currently 109 vacancies
in federal courts). The more overloaded and clogged up the courts are the
harder it is for trolls to do real damage, especially now that they've lost
their go-to guy.

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reader5000
Um tea-party republicans shutting down the federal courts isn't really
something to be happy about.

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zbruhnke
I spent most of 2007 in Judge Ward's court room, all I can say is if you have
never been a part of one the patent cases involving him you have missed out on
quite a bit of humor.

Though he was known for being plaintiff friendly I can happily say we came out
on the other side of a few of his judgements and I have known him to be mostly
fair given the proper arguments. Sadly, the trolls win all too often because
more often than not they have more money than the guy they are suing, good
attorneys do not come cheap and the patent trolls do not mind paying for them

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SkyMarshal
_and the patent trolls do not mind paying for them_

Must be nice not to have employees, supply chains, R&D, and all those other
things to pay for. Just acquisition costs and attorney fees.

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Bud
The Eastern District of Texas has no business ruling on Silicon Valley tech
cases.

Frankly, I got enough of Texans raiding and looting the California economy
during the Enron debacle. We don't need any more of that.

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smanek
I wonder if there was any relation to this story:
[http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111005/11133116225/judge-...](http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111005/11133116225/judge-
makes-company-pay-more-infringement-because-ceo-complained-publicly-about-
patent-system.shtml)

I could see him wanting to step down before any sort of formal investigation
could occur ...

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tzs
His retirement was announced months ago.

As far as the Techdirt story goes, there is nothing to investigate since he
did nothing even remotely wrong. Techdirt, as usual when they cover legal
matters, pretty much completely botched their reporting. See the earlier HN
discussion for details.

