Author name: Western District

Yesterday the Court posted a new Default Protective Order – Patent Cases. Beyond the direct link in our post, you can find it on the “Courtroom Guidance” tab of Judge Albright’s page on the WDTX website, as pictured above. Judge Albright has stated in the context of his prior Working Group meetings that this Default PO is not intended as a be-all, end-all—but simply as a starting point from which the parties to any given litigation can tailor case-specific needs or preferences. We’re not going to go into excruciating detail here, but we’ll note that the starting point for Judge Albright’s […]

Yesterday afternoon, the Court entered a text order denying Defendants Dell Technologies Inc., Dell Inc., and EMC Corporation’s Motion for Intra-District Transfer to the Austin Division. See UNM Rainforest Innovations v. Dell Techs., 6:20-cv-00468.  As our readers know, the Court recently issued a new Standing Order (which we covered here), which only covered inter-district transfer motions. The new Standing Order stated that the Court will not hold a Markman hearing before ruling on an inter-district transfer motion. This text order likely signals that the Court will treat intra-district and inter-district transfer motions differently – at least in terms of when the Court will rule

Today the Court released a new standing order entitled “Standing Order Regarding Motion For Interdistrict Transfer.” The Order states that all parties who have filed a motion for inter-district transfer are required to provide the Court with a status report, which is to inform the Court whether the motion is fully briefed and ready for resolution, no later than six weeks prior to the date of the Markman hearing.  Furthermore, for parties who have such motions pending at the time of the entry of this Order and a Markman hearing is scheduled less than six weeks from the entry of this Order,

The Waco Division continues to be a topic of much attention in legal media: As we noted previously, the Federal Circuit recently ruled that Judge Albright did not abuse his discretion in transferring the True Chemical v. Performance Chemical case from the Midland-Odessa Division to the Waco Division. Note, however, that in connection with a late-breaking motion for discovery sanctions (about which more coverage will follow on the blog ASAP), that trial will not proceed this coming Monday. Prof. Dennis Crouch at Patently-O covers the mandamus order: Texas is Big: Albright did not Abuse Discretion in Moving Case from Midland to Waco So does Perry Cooper

As regular followers of Texas IP litigations are aware, it’s been a busy March: Judge Albright’s second-ever patent trial recently resulted in a massive verdict for the patentee, and the past three weeks have also seen four patent trials concluded in the Eastern District of Texas (two in Marshall and two in Sherman). We at the blog thought it’d be informative and fun to keep track of IP-related patent trials from around the state of Texas. So today marks the launch of our Texas IP Trial Tracker. The idea is that we’ll update this post as courts around the state conduct

As far as this blog is concerned, the most significant media coverage of the Waco Division this week was Scott Graham’s Q&A with Mark and Joe for Texas Lawyer, regarding How the Western District of Texas Became a Patent Hot Spot (subscription required). But of course, the Waco Division received other attention, as well: For Law.com’s Legal Speak podcast, Scott Graham sat down with Winston & Strawn lawyers Michael Tomasulo and Danielle Williams to discuss ‘Test of a Business Model’: What the $2.175B Megaverdict Against Intel Means for Patent Monetization (podcast also available for download from standard podcast hubs) On Patently-O, Alan Cox takes

We didn’t have time to get to it on Friday, so instead we’ll begin this week with a link roundup, with mini-summaries of our own layered in.  The VLSI-Intel trial may be done, but Waco Division media coverage has slowed barely, if at all. Here’s what came across our radar over the past couple weeks or so (including some stories originally published during the trial, but not related to VLSI-Intel). First, last week Lex Machina released its 2021 Patent Litigation Report (summary graphic here), which unsurprisingly observed the importance of Judge Albright’s Court to the national patent litigation landscape (19% of nationwide patent filings!). In relation

We’ll close our formal VLSI-Intel wall-to-wall coverage with what we hope is a comprehensive collection of stories about VLSI v. Intel from the past couple weeks (including repeating a few links we shared previously): First, working backward in time, here’s coverage of the verdict and post-trial analysis: Joe spoke with Scott Graham of Law.com immediately following the verdict: Fortress, Irell Win $2.175B Patent Verdict Against Intel (subscription required) Scott Graham also broke down the future prospects for the jury’s verdict in post-trial proceedings: Skilled in the Art: Breaking Down the Patent Shot Heard Around the World (subscription required) Joe also spoke with Matt Bultman of Bloomberg Law, regarding

We’re generally leery of too-definitive “What does it all mean?”-type analysis. But we also assume that most of the (presumably mostly) lawyers reading this publication are doing so with a forward-looking view: i.e., if you were the advocate or the client appearing in front of Judge Albright, what would you want to know? So here’s an attempt to present some potential “lessons learned” from the VLSI v. Intel trial. For some other similar content (though we try to minimize repetition here), check out our thoughts from the MV3-Roku trial in October 2020, plus Mark’s earlier observations following Day 3 coverage last week. Let’s get to it: “Waco Juries”: Is

Recently Judge Albright issued an order denying LG Electronics’ Motion to Transfer to the Northern District of California (“NDCA”) in a case filed by co-plaintiffs Ikorongo Texas LLC and Ikorongo Technology LLC. What’s most interesting about this order (not just that it was denied) is Judge Albright’s rationale regarding one of the two plaintiff entities.  As most of you are well aware, Section 1404(a)’s threshold inquiry is whether the case initially “might have been brought” in the proposed transferee forum. Although both Ikorongo and LG agreed that LG committed acts of alleged infringement in the NDCA, and LG has a