
Appeals Court: Judge Can't Ignore the Supreme Court to Keep Patent Cases in TX - rbanffy
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20170921/17090738264/appeals-court-tells-patent-trolls-favorite-judge-he-cant-just-ignore-supreme-court-to-keep-patent-cases-texas.shtml
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throwawaykf09
Not a lawyer and haven't read that many rulings, but this one looked pretty
normal and not that "sarcasm-oozing" to me. These decisions often come with
elaborate reasoning behind them, with references backing them up. Sometimes
they need to use a "common meaning" of a term rather than a legal one, and so
they might cite a dictionary. At least that is what this one looks like.

The inverse of Poe’s law, or just a typical article trying to churn up some
rageviews?

~~~
dragonwriter
> Not a lawyer and haven't read that many rulings, but this one looked pretty
> normal and not that "sarcasm-oozing" to me.

Yeah, so, it's hard to detect variation from the norm if you have no basis for
understanding where the baseline and range of normal variation is.

While not a lawyer, I've studied law and read _lots_ of court rulings, and the
excerpt provided is pretty high on the list of the most condescending
rejections of a lower court decision I've seen.

> Sometimes they need to use a "common meaning" of a term rather than a legal
> one, and so they might cite a dictionary.

Citing, for the same common term, both a 1911 general-use dictionary and the
1891 first edition of Black's Law (other than for a time-specific meaning of a
term in a turn-of-the-century law), on top on the “this is a noun, this is an
adjective that modifies the noun” bit, is pretty much saying “English...it's a
thing you might want to look into.”

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moomin
Given the amount of damage this judge has done, I'd say he should be in jail
for abuse of process. But I'm sure he's sufficiently covered his back.

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joekrill
Can someone explain to me Judge Gilstrap's motive for these rulings and
funneling cases to his district? Does he take kickbacks from the patent
holders? Does it force business into his area? Or maybe he is just an asshole?

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larrik
I believe I read his son is the lawyer representing the patent-holders (it
could have been another judge there, though).

~~~
gist
In addition to the reason that you stated there is also an amount of power
that is conveyed to him by being so involved in the way that he is. It's an
entirely bureaucratic way of thinking and what people of even nominal power
(say the janitor who controls the supply closet) thrive on. While you can't
argue the importance of a judge in a case like this (not a janitor) his
importance and good feeling by getting positive feedback from attorneys filing
cases which he handles must be quite the drug. To him it must be like being
able to decide who gets an academy award or into a good school.

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spodek
A cash fine would teach a more effective lesson.

I doubt he cares about the words as much as money.

~~~
willvarfar
I think this ruling will severely curtail his future income.

He had managed to attract 25% of all patent cases because those bringing the
suites were choosing his troll-friendly court.

However, going forward, those trolls will have to go to the court where the
defendant has a physical place?

~~~
dctoedt
> _I think this ruling will severely curtail his future income._

Um, no. Under Article III section 1 of the U.S. Constitution, federal judges
are appointed for life, and their salary cannot be reduced [0]. In general,
judges are prohibited from accepting compensation from parties before them,
and indeed are quite restricted in what outside compensation they can accept
for anything [1].

[0]
[https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/articleiii](https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/articleiii)

[1]
[http://www.uscourts.gov/sites/default/files/vol02c-ch10.pdf](http://www.uscourts.gov/sites/default/files/vol02c-ch10.pdf)

~~~
jeroen94704
It's interesting then what makes Gilstrap so energetic in his efforts to keep
those patent-cases coming. Assuming there are no direct monetary payments from
patent trolls coming his way, what is is incentive? Does he get "favors" from
patent trolls, or does he have a relatives or friends who benefit from his
practices? Always follow the money, is what I heard :).

~~~
stevenwoo
The tradition in the Texas was to have son create and run patent law practices
while the judges serve in the court to get around the direct benefit
technicality. Then when the judge retires he joins a patent law practice.

[https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/04/east-texas-
judge...](https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/04/east-texas-judge-who-
oversaw-1700-patent-cases-joins-biggest-ip-law-firm/)

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dsfyu404ed
The quotes from the ruling remind me of having a "please follow your own damn
policies" argument with someone one step up from the receptionist.

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Arwill
My guess is that companies will start closing any offices there, just so they
can't be tried by that court.

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tyingq
For those that are curious, here's the jurisdiction:
[http://www.txed.uscourts.gov/?q=court-
info](http://www.txed.uscourts.gov/?q=court-info)

A large portion of it is rural, but it does include suburban areas of Dallas
like Plano, which is the HDQ for companies like JC Penney, Frito Lay, and
Perot Systems. And, of course, your HDQ doesn't need to be there, just any
"place of business".

~~~
jhall1468
The major issue for trolls is they prefer to target tech companies that
recently received funding. By incorporating and having offices only in patent-
antagonistic jurisdictions, they all but chop the head off patent trolls.

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c517402
What does a federal judge have to do to be removed?

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djaychela
Die? (Not meant as a threat!)

~~~
FBISurveillance
A Federal Judge can be a) arrested by FBI; b) impeached by their state
legislatures; c) in some states dismissed by a public vote.

~~~
tamcap
Are you sure about this one?
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_judge#Te...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_judge#Tenure_and_salary)
The article above states, a Senate trial is required, or finding of a mental /
physical disability.

~~~
rbanffy
Is lack of morals a mental disability?

~~~
sverige
The Senate can impeach federal judges for high crimes and misdemeanors. That
power has been exercised extraordinarily rarely. I can think of only one case
in my lifetime, where a judge from Mississippi was removed in the 90s IIRC.

I think Congressional oversight of the judiciary has been the very weakest
part of the separation of powers doctrine laid out by the founders.

~~~
baybal2
US greatly lacks that separation in between the executive branch and the
judiciary for simple reasons:

1\. Top tiers judges are nominated by the executive branch, there are no other
way up there.

2\. For a high tier judge in US, a promotion is effectively a political
promotion

3\. US law, as I know, has no provisions for disbarring a judge for bad
judgement even if it is plainly going against the what is written in the code.
Only gross miscarriage of justice (graft, proven act of conspiracy, and 3 or 4
violations of court procedures) allows for impeachment by congress

All of that makes appointing politically aligned judges too attractive for
executive branch officials who want to extend their powers through them

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gadders
Offtopic, but have you tried selecting any text in the article on BoingBoing
with your mouse? What on earth is that javascript monstrosity from Rune that
pops up?

When I see horrible stuff like that I tend to think the website is in a death
spiral and desperate for revenue.

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HankB99
I tried that out of curiosity and did not have the same experience. I selected
some text and when right clicked, got the typical copy/search/etc... dialog.
I'm using Chrome on Linux with Ghostery and uBlock among other plugins.
Perhaps one of those interferes with what you experienced.

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gadders
I would imagine so. The website of the plugin maker is at:

[https://www.secretrune.com/](https://www.secretrune.com/)

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baybal2
That is far from being a scorching lesson, a prompt disbarment would be one.

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icebraining
Blogspam from
[https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20170921/17090738264/appea...](https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20170921/17090738264/appeals-
court-tells-patent-trolls-favorite-judge-he-cant-just-ignore-supreme-court-to-
keep-patent-cases-texas.shtml)

~~~
distantsounds
you're going to call boingboing blogspam, really?

~~~
CaliforniaKarl
I agree, because after looking at both, I don't see how boingboing added any
value here.

~~~
distantsounds
I agree nothing of value was added, but it's a big stretch to call Doctorow's
website "blogspam." That connotation has a whole 'nother set of attributes
that go along with it.

~~~
imron
Likewise, it's a big stretch to call boingboing "Doctorow's website".

~~~
dsr_
I noted at the end of 2014 that Boing-Boing had stopped having much value.
Brief summary: unsigned advertorials in the voice of the BB staff; page view
splitting to max ad revenue -- often with no more than 1-2 sentences on the
last page; pushing podcasts without text equivalents; repeat entries (at the
time they didn't have any decent queue management, don't know if that's
changed) and finally: I've got a perfectly good RSS reader, and that entirely
replaces BB with a bunch of much higher quality sources of signal.

I think I've looked at BB articles three times in the intervening years.

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Bartweiss
As of the big Wells Fargo scam, I filed BB under "actively destroying value".
The brief summary they gave for the arbitration issue abandoned the real story
(WF tries to force arbitration based on existing contracts) for a completely
false clickbait story (WF tries to force arbitration using the forged
contracts).

At this point it's really no better than HuffPo's "repackage and publish"
pieces.

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CalChris
Texas will want to get rid him (yes, difficult) now that the Eastern District
Court of Texas racket is up. It’s a competitive disadvantage now.

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umanwizard
He isn't affiliated with Texas or connected with its government in any way.
He's part of the federal court system; he just happens to be physically
located in Texas.

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CalChris
I am well aware of the construction of our Federal system with its separation
of powers, its system of states and their boundaries. I'm also aware of the
jurisdictional boundary of the Eastern District which you can view here:

[https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-cjdbkic2WPI/WDSjakCZpNI/AAAAAAAAd...](https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-cjdbkic2WPI/WDSjakCZpNI/AAAAAAAAdMg/VmkFB2u60L8KhKVUC3jA-
thX-CB2Qbw2QCLcB/s1600/00935144.PNG)

Yeah, this is a Texas thing and in particular it's an East Texas thing. Texans
enabled, participated and benefited from this and if you need that spelled
out, I'll call it corruption.

Of course Federal judges are Federal and moreover they get life tenure. So
this guy isn't going away. But his patent mud farm is.

