West Texas Topped the NPE Charts in Q1, but a Single OpCo Case Pushed an Uncommon Venue Even Higher

In Q1 2021, the Western District of Pennsylvania was the top venue for overall patent litigation and for litigation filed by operating companies. While that district is ordinarily not a popular patent venue, it took first place as the somewhat anomalous result of a single case filed by Doggie Dental against 289 makers of counterfeit teeth-cleaning chew toys for dogs. The Western District of Texas, meanwhile, held second place for overall litigation, the top spot for NPEs, and the third highest for operating companies. Trailing West Texas for overall and NPE litigation was the District of Delaware, which in turn was followed by the Eastern District of Texas in both of those two categories.

As RPX has extensively reported, the rise of the Western District of Texas—the top patent district of 2020 by a wide margin—is largely the work of District Judge Alan D. Albright, whose courtroom has become such a popular destination due to his rather plaintiff-centric posture toward certain types of early motions, including transfer requests and Alice challenges. Moreover, his district’s lack of divisional standing rules allows plaintiffs to file directly in their preferred division—specifically, Waco, where they are guaranteed to get Judge Albright as the division’s only judge.

See RPX’s first-quarter review for more on Judge Albright’s handling of transfers and Alice motions, and for details on how he has come to preside over an ever-widening share of US patent litigation.