On July 25, 2022, Orlando L. Garcia (then-Chief U.S. District Judge for the Western District of Texas) ordered that patent cases filed in the Waco Division on or after July 25, 2022 would no longer be automatically assigned to Judge Alan Albright (the sole judge in Waco). Instead, these cases would be randomly assigned to one of 12 district court judges (including Judge Albright) throughout the Western District of Texas.
Before Judge Garcia issued his order, patent plaintiffs filing in the Western District of Texas could select the division they wanted, and they overwhelmingly chose Judge Albright. The Western District of Texas and Judge Albright were the most active district court and the most active district judge for patent case filings (including those filed by High-Volume Plaintiffs) in 2020 and 2021.
For example, in 2021, 30% of patent cases filed by High-Volume Plaintiffs were in the Western District of Texas, of which 96% were filed before Judge Albright. This was an increase from 2020, in which 26% of patent cases filed by High-Volume Plaintiffs were in the Western District of Texas, of which 93% were filed before Judge Albright.
Lex Machina examined the impact of Judge Garcia’s order, first by looking at the volume of patent filings in 2022 before and after the order, and then by comparing 2022 patent filing data with 2021 and 2020. We also looked at how the order affected patent case filings by High-Volume Plaintiffs. Finally, we looked at how the order affected the 12 other judges in the Western District of Texas.
Not surprisingly, the percentage of patent cases assigned to Judge Albright, including the percentage of patent cases filed by High-Volume Plaintiffs, decreased after the order.
Between January 1, 2022 and July 24, 2022, 537 patent cases were filed in the Western District of Texas, of which 512, or 95%, were before Judge Albright. During that time period, High-Volume Plaintiffs filed 287 patent cases, of which 99% were before Judge Albright.
Between July 25, 2022 to December 31, 2022, 330 patent cases were filed in the Western District of Texas, of which 165, or 50%, were before Judge Albright. High-Volume Plaintiffs filed 172 patent cases, and 67% of those cases were before Judge Albright.
The drop in patent case filings in 2022 can also be seen by looking at the data by quarter.
The number of patent cases filed in the Western District of Texas decreased in Q3 by 26.6% compared to Q2, by 19% compared to Q1. Filings in Q4 remained flat compared to Q3.
The number of patent cases filed in Judge Albright’s court dropped significantly in Q3, by 52% compared to Q2 and by 44.7% compared to Q1. Filings in Q4 dropped 58% compared to Q1 and 63.6% compared to Q2.
In addition, patent case filings in the Western District of Texas by High-Volume Plaintiffs declined in the third and fourth quarter of 2022, with filings in Q3 dropping 13.6% compared to Q1 and 23.9% compared to Q2, and filings in Q4 dropping 32.8% compared to Q1 and 40.8% compared to Q2:
Patent case filings by High Volume Plaintiffs in Judge Albright’s court also declined in Q3 and Q4, with filings in Q3 dropping 38.2% compared to Q1 and 46.1% compared to Q2 and filings in Q4 dropping 52.8% compared to Q1 and 58.9% compared to Q2:
Overall, in 2022, the number of patent filings both in Judge Albright’s court and to a lesser extent in the Western District of Texas decreased compared to 2021 and 2020. Nonetheless, Judge Albright and the Western District of Texas remained the most popular court and judge for patent filings in 2022, including patent filings by High Volume Plaintiffs, which speaks to the volume of patent case filings in the Western District of Texas and Judge Albright’s court before Judge Garcia issued his order.
The number of patent cases filed in 2022 in the Western District of Texas decreased by 11.6% compared to 2021 and remained flat compared to 2020.
The number of patent cases filed in Judge Albright’s court in 2022 decreased by 27.3% compared to 2021 and by 14.7% compared to 2020.
Filings by High-Volume Plaintiffs decreased in 2022. The number of patent cases filed by High-Volume Plaintiffs in the Western District of Texas in 2022 decreased by 13.9% compared to 2021 and by 3.8% compared to 2020.
The number of patent cases filed in 2022 by High-Volume Plaintiffs before Judge Albright dropped by 22% compared to 2021 and by 10.6% compared to 2020.
Finally, as of July 25, 2022, all of the judges in Judge Garcia’s order were assigned patent cases but not nearly in the same volume as Judge Albright.
As discussed in a previous blog post, at the time of Judge Garcia’s order, the other judges in the Western District of Texas had only a small fraction of the patent cases filed in that district, and some judges had not been assigned a patent case in five years.
The number of patent cases filed in 2022 before and after the order, and the assigned judges per the order were as follows:
| Judge | Division | Patent cases filed 1/1/22-7/24/22(open and terminated) |
Patent cases filed 7/25/22-12/31/22(open and terminated) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Orlando L. Garcia | San Antonio | 1 | 24 |
| Fred Biery | San Antonio | 0 | 19 |
| Alia Moses | Del Rio | 0 | 14 |
| Lee Yeakel | Austin | 10 | 28 |
| Kathleen Cardone | El Paso | 0 | 17 |
| Frank Montalvo | El Paso | 0 | 6 |
| Xavier Rodriguez | San Antonio | 0 | 19 |
| Robert Pitman | Austin | 14 | 38 |
| David Counts | Midland/ Odessa and Pecos | 1 | 13 |
| Alan Albright | Waco | 512 | 166 |
| Jason Pulliam | San Antonio | 0 | 10 |
| David Ezra | San Antonio | 2 | 11 |
Judge Garcia stepped down as chief judge in December, and new Chief Judge Alia Moses has ordered that the random assignment of patent cases filed in the Waco Division will continue. Lex Machina will provide regular updates as patent cases shift within the district.