Judge Albright Still Sees Most of Waco’s Patent Cases, but a New Rule Could Change That

In July 2022, the now-former chief judge of the Western District of Texas, Orlando L. Garcia, issued an order designed to reduce the concentration of patent litigation before District Judge Alan D. Albright, who had successfully (and openly) sought to attract patent litigation to his court. This was made possible by divisional filing rules that let plaintiffs file directly in a preferred division—letting them pick Judge Albright by filing in Waco, where he is the only district judge. The order changed this rule solely for patent cases brought in Waco, providing that they would randomly be assigned among a larger group of judges throughout West Texas, including Judge Albright. This appears to have reduced Waco’s appeal to NPEs, which added just 54 defendants there in Q2 2024, compared to 103 in Q2 2023.

Perhaps not surprisingly, Judge Albright has continued to fall in the rankings as a result, failing to break the top five for the first time in Q2. The top district judge last quarter remained Chief Judge Rodney Gilstrap, with 17% of the country’s patent litigation falling in his court.

Though he saw a smaller portion of the nation’s overall patent caseload in Q2, Judge Albright has continued to receive a disproportionate share of Waco’s patent litigation despite that order, with 48% of Waco’s Q2 filings ending up before him. The primary reason is that in the months following the 2022 case assignment order, the Western District adopted a practice of assigning each new patent complaint to the same judge that previously oversaw related cases involving the same parties and patents. In practice, this has led Judge Albright to receive the lion’s share of those “legacy” filings, given the number of prior cases in existing litigation campaigns that had already fallen in his courtroom before the case assignment order was handed down.

That said, stakeholders have debated whether this could potentially change as a result of a revised case assignment order issued by current Chief Judge Alia Moses on May 30, 2024. That order maintains the random case assignment policy but now provides the following new language on related cases: “Parties seeking to consolidate patent cases contending all cases are related shall file a motion with sufficient legal and factual justification in the court and with the judge presiding over the case sought to be removed”. However, it remains to be seen whether fewer movants will succeed in getting related cases reassigned, or whether the order will just preserve the status quo with a more fulsome record.

See RPX’s second-quarter review for more on patent venue and other key litigation trends in Q2 and the first half of 2024.