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Following up on a Lex Machina blog post last year on patent case filings in the Eastern and Western District of Texas, data from the first six months of 2024 shows that:

1. The steep drop in patent case filings by High-Volume Plaintiffs in 2023 may be bottoming out. In 2023, High-Volume Plaintiffs filed 962 cases in the U.S., a 43 percent decrease from 2022. But in the first six months of 2024, High-Volume Plaintiffs filed 596 cases, suggesting that the number of cases filed by High-Volume Plaintiffs will exceed 1,000 for the entire year.

2. High-Volume Plaintiffs filed more than three times the number of cases in the Eastern District of Texas than in the Western District of Texas. Of the 596 cases filed by High-Volume Plaintiffs in the U.S. during the first six months of 2024, 267 cases (or 45 percent) were filed in the Eastern District of Texas, and 86 cases (or 14 percent) were filed in the Western District of Texas. The District of Delaware was third with 46 cases filed (or 8 percent).

3. Three of the top five judges for High-Volume Plaintiffs are in the Eastern District of Texas. In the first six months of 2024, Judge Rodney Gilstrap of the Eastern District of Texas had the most patent filings by High-Volume Plaintiffs with 182 cases (31 percent of all cases filed by High-Volume Plaintiffs in the U.S.). He was followed by Judge Amos Mazzant, also of the Eastern District, with 40 cases (7 percent). As for Judge Alan Albright of the Western District of Texas, he was third with 31 cases (5 percent). Judge Sean Jordan of the Eastern District of Texas was fourth with 28 cases (5 percent), and Judge John Holcomb of the Central District of California was fifth with 22 cases (4 percent).

4. More than one third of the patent cases filed by High-Volume Plaintiffs in the Western District of Texas (so far) were with Judge Alan Albright, but that may change.4. In the first six months of 2024, Judge Albright has the largest number of case filings by High-Volume Plaintiffs in the Western District of Texas with 31 filings (36 percent), and Judge Walter Counts III is second with 16 filings (19 percent).

One reason why Judge Albright has maintained a significant share of High-Volume Plaintiff filings may be because in the Western District of Texas, a newly-filed case that is designated as “related” to an earlier-filed pending case in that district will be assigned to the judge on the earlier-filed case. In the Western District of Texas, a patent case is deemed related to an earlier-filed pending case if “it involves the validity or infringement of a patent already in suit in that case.” (See the Western District of Texas’ May 28, 2023 Amended Plan for Random and Direct Assignment of Cases in Multi-Judge Divisions).

In general, related cases are assigned to a single judge to promote efficiency and to avoid conflicting results.

But on May 30, 2024, Chief Judge Alia Moses of the Western District of Texas issued an order that not only mandates random assignment of new patent cases filed in Waco Division among 12 judges in the Western District, including Albright, but also requires parties who seek to consolidate related cases before a single judge to file a motion with “sufficient legal and factual justification” with the judge whose docket they wish to leave. It remains to be seen how this new requirement will impact High-Volume Plaintiff filings in the Western District of Texas.

5. The top High-Volume Plaintiff (so far) is (still) Patent Armory, Inc. Patent Armory, Inc., which was the top High-Volume Plaintiff in 2023 with 87 patent cases, has filed 59 patent cases in the first six months of 2024, with 17 cases filed in the Eastern District of Texas and 13 cases filed in the Western District of Texas. All 17 of the cases in the Eastern District of Texas are with Judge Gilstrap; 11 of the 13 cases in the Western District of Texas are with Judge Albright.

6. The top law firm for High-Volume Plaintiffs (so far) is (still) Rabicoff Law. Rabicoff Law was the most active law firm representing High Volume Plaintiffs in 2023 with 231 cases. In the first six months of 2024, the firm filed 174 cases, with 72 cases in the Eastern District of Texas and 33 cases in the Western District of Texas.

Lex Machina will provide an update at the end of 2024; look out for information in next year’s Patent Litigation Report.