ANALYSIS: West Texas Remains the Top Draw in Patent Law—For Now

The Western District of Texas maintained its status as the country’s top patent court in 2021, but all signals indicate that a change is coming for a considerable number of patent cases in 2022. The question is: Will Congress force that change, or will the federal courts lead the charge themselves?

Substantial calls were made in 2021 to address concerns of venue- and judge-shopping in patent litigation, spurred by practices in W.D. Texas that place the vast majority of its patent cases (and nearly a quarter of patent cases nationwide) in the hands of a single judge. How these concerns ...