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SMU symposium on Eastern District of Texas Patent Litigation

By Michael C. Smith

I will be speaking tomorrow morning, Friday, February 18, 2011 in Dallas on the opening panel at a symposium at SMU in Dallas The Eastern District of Texas and Patents, which is part of a series of seminar on emerging intellectual property issues at SMU's Dedman School of Law.  According to the brochure, "[t]he Symposium will explore the history and development of the Eastern District of Texas (EDTX) as one of the Rocket-Docket jurisdictions for patent litigation. The Symposium will focus on the impact of the Eastern District of Texas on patent law, patent reform and innovation."

My panel is on Eastern District jurors, and is followed by a panel on war stories (at least I'm pretty sure that's what it'll end up being) then a lunch address on venue by Fifth Circuit judge Patrick Higginbotham.  Interestingly, Judge Higginbotham was one of the three judges on the first Fifth Circuit panel in 2008 who voted to deny the petition for mandamus in In re Volkswagen.  As readers know, that panel's decision was vacated and the case was reassigned to a different panel for rehearing, which granted the writ, whose decision was in turn vacated on petition for rehearing, and the petition was granted by the entire Fifth Circuit, sitting en banc.  So it should be an interesting lunch. 

After lunch, the history of the ED patent docket will be discussed by a panel including Chief Judge David Folsom, and district judges T. John Ward and Leonard Davis. Since these three judges, collectively, have heard well over a thousand patent cases over the past fifteen years, their comments ought to be interesting.  The day winds up with a panel on the effect of district courts' patent cases on innovation.

The symnposium's organizer is SMU Dedman School of Law Professor Xuan-Thao Nguyen, who has written recently on the district's docket.  If you're interested, you can register online at www.law.smu.edu. 

Full post as published by Eastern District of Texas Federal Court Practice on February 17, 2011 (boomark / email).