Friday, March 26, 2010
I Hear The Weather's Nice In East Texas, Too, But I Doubt That's Why Patent Litigants Move There...
Techdirt: "We're all familiar with the many reasons why patent holders try to file their lawsuits in East Texas -- a notoriously 'patent holder friendly' court, such that the it remains (far and away) the most popular court for patent lawsuits. However, in recent years, there has been some effort underway to get cases that obviously don't belong in East Texas to be moved elsewhere, with some success. However, to deal with this, we've seen a variety of tactics from patent holders, including suing lots of companies in a variety of places so that 'any place' is better than somewhere else and picking a random tiny local East Texas company to sue along with all the big companies, just so you can claim 'hey, the lawsuit belongs in East Texas.'"
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Anything a lawyer can do to influence the outcome of a case will be done, and that includes filing a suit in the best available venue. If a judge or court is known for favoring plaintiffs in certain cases (such as the patent cases here) then they'll be an attraction for everyone who wants to file that sort of a suit. When a lawsuit can involve millions of dollars you want to leave as little as possible to chance, if your chance looks better to the defendant then they might be more inclined to settle given the odds that they're facing, that makes the work even easier for the plaintiff.
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