The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit keeps on laying down rules of the road for U.S. District Judge Alan Albright of the Western District of Texas when it comes to transferring cases to California.

Albright is the nation’s busiest patent judge, with more than 500 infringement suits filed in his Waco courtroom in 2021. But many of the technology industry defendants would prefer to have the cases heard in their home base of Northern California, where the bench is perceived to be less sympathetic to patent owners, especially nonpracticing entities or NPEs.