West Texas Stays on Top as Senate Confirms Delaware Nominee for Judge Stark’s Seat

In Q1 2022, the Western District of Texas was yet again the most popular district for all patent litigation and for litigation filed by NPEs. The District of Delaware was the top district for operating company litigation and held second place for all litigation. However, Delaware fell to number three for NPE litigation, outpaced by the Eastern District of Texas (which held third place for all litigation).

At present, the District of Delaware has three active district judges—Chief Judge Colm F. Connolly and District Judges Richard G. Andrews and Maryellen Noreika—following the recent confirmation of former District Judge Leonard P. Stark to join the Federal Circuit. On April 13, President Biden nominated Fox Rothschild partner Gregory B. Williams—an experienced patent litigator—to fill the vacancy left by Judge Stark. The state’s two US senators, Tom Carper and Chris Coons (both D-DE), issued an endorsement that same day touting his “broad federal court experience, including with intellectual property and corporate law”. Williams, who has served as a special master for the District of Delaware since 2020, is also a former president of the Delaware State Bar association.

The Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on Williams’ nomination on May 11. Written questions posed to the nominee by committee members largely focused on topics not related to patent litigation, though Williams did state that he does “not believe it is appropriate for judges to take any steps with the intention of attracting a particular type of case or litigant” in response to a question about “forum selling” from Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC)—in context, a reference to Senator Tillis’s criticisms of the practices of District Judge Alan D. Albright of West Texas. Williams cited the need to avoid commenting on hypotheticals in declining to answer questions on the Federal Circuit’s mandamus jurisprudence (also a reference to Judge Albright) and on the state of the law on patent eligibility.

On July 20, the full Senate confirmed Williams, following the Judiciary Committee’s favorable vote on his nomination on June 9. Williams’ confirmation comes as the court faces a backlog caused by his predecessor’s departure, with magistrate judges picking up some of the slack. Since the end of the past quarter, the district has been handling Judge Stark’s former caseload by assigning those lawsuits to a newly created Vacant Judgeship docket, which are then assigned to magistrate judges where the parties both consent, or to visiting judges where they do not.

See RPX’s second-quarter review for more on venue and other trends impacting patent litigation and the patent marketplace.