Last month, one of the nation’s patent filing hot spots, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, put in place new court procedures that should send a large number of newly filed patent cases to new homes. For the last several years, Judge Alan Albright, a former patent litigator, seated in Waco, Texas, made it his mission to bring patent cases to a speedy trial and to have those cases administered efficiently. As a result, and because cases filed before him stayed before him, he received an ever-escalating number patent infringement filings. Indeed, last year, according to Lex Machina data, Albright received a total of 932 filings, almost 25% of all patent cases filed in the United States. Until last month, he was on a pace close to that for 2022. That’s a lot of filings. A month into this new set of procedures, Lex Machina confirms that Western District of Texas patent filings are indeed down substantially. That said, there were 45 patent suit filings in the Western District over the last month, and reports are that many of those did make their way to Albright. Many of those cases likely were related to cases already pending before Judge Albright. How things may play out in the long run remains up for debate, but it is hard not to see substantial numbers of filings moving elsewhere.

Because future cases, unrelated to those previously filed in Waco, should no longer even presumptively go to Albright (plaintiffs should have only a 1/12 chance at drawing Albright), and because plaintiffs won’t expect to receive similar treatment elsewhere in the district, many plaintiffs will be looking for new homes for their cases. Certainly, many future filings will go to Delaware, some will go to other courts in Texas, and some will go to California. Not surprisingly, Lex Machina reports increased filings in Delaware and the Eastern District of Texas over the last 30 days. But it would not be surprising to see a reasonable number of new cases go to Florida. Why might this happen? First, Florida has long been a preferred venue for numerous types of case filings. For the last four years, the Northern District of Florida has been the clear, national favorite for product liability cases. Over that period, the district received over 300,000 such filings, five times that of the next leading contender. See, Lex Machina. Over the same period, the Southern District of Florida was one of the top recipients of trademark, tort, and employment filings, and the Middle District was one of the top recipients of trade secret and consumer protection filings. Florida would not be a leading contender in these categories if plaintiffs doubted their ability to obtain a fair trial in a reasonable amount of time.