The First State

Delaware, the first state to ratify the constitution, may soon be first in another category: federal district court with the most patent cases. In a guest post on PatentlyO, Professor Paul Janicke of the University of Houston Law Center reports on his study of new patent cases filed from October 1, 2011, through March 31, 2012. Janicke discovered that the District of Delaware is now challenging the Eastern District of Texas for supremacy as the venue of choice for patent litigants. Of the cases filed, the Eastern District of Texas led with 407, with Delaware nipping at its heels with 388 new case filings. Janicke also noted that Delaware’s share of patent cases has risen from 3.69% of the national total in 1995 to 15.63% in the six–month study period. Extrapolating from that conclusion, it would appear that approximately one–third of all new patent cases filed in this six–month window were filed in two venues: east Texas and Delaware—further evidence of the consolidation of patent litigation in a small number of favored jurisdictions selected for reasons other than their geographical proximity to alleged acts of infringement.