Happy Federal Rules Amendments Day

If there was an advent calendar for federal civil litigators—and why would there be—opening the window on December 1, 2015, would reveal a brand–new—or, at least, significantly amended—set of Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.

We’ve previewed the key amendments most immediately relevant to patent litigation—in with a new discovery regime in which discovery must be proportional to the stakes of the case and out with an old rule allowing for bare–bones complaints to be filed in patent cases.

As predicted, on the eve of these rule changes, patent plaintiffs found the wherewithal to file (according to information obtained from Docket Navigator) 263 new patent cases relying on hoary old Form 18. True to form, 196—just under 75% of the total—were filed in the Eastern District of Texas.

Now that complaints must have more substance and discovery be in proportion to the value of the case, these new rules hold out the hope of a new dawn for patent litigation in which plaintiffs must state their claims more clearly and the costs of litigation need not drive settlement decisions. But will it prove a false dawn, as others before?