One of the biggest reasons the Eastern District of Texas hears so many patent cases (at last check, almost half of all cases filed this year were filed in the Eastern District) is because of a Federal Circuit case from 1990—VE Holding—that radically expanded the places patent owners could sue for infringement. Today, EFF, Public Knowledge, and Engine Advocacy asked the Federal Circuit to consider our amicus brief in a case called In re TC Heartland that seeks to see VE Holding relegated to a footnote in history. As we explain in our proposed amicus brief, VE Holding has allowed patent owners to sue in practically any district in the country, no matter how tenuous the connection to the alleged infringement. In turn, this has given rise to “forum selling,” a phenomenon described in a recent paper [PDF] by the same name. “Forum selling” is what we see in the Eastern District of Texas. Namely, judges there have adopted rules that tend to…
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