Seeking Transparency in Waco

Publication Date

3-19-2021

Document Type

Article

Organizational Units

Sturm College of Law

Keywords

Transparency, Alan Albright, Western District of Texas, Patent litigation, Patent law

Abstract

Judge Alan Albright’s court in the Western District of Texas is rapidly becoming the latest hot spot for patent litigation. While only a total of two patent cases were filed in 2016 and 2017 in Judge Albright’s Waco federal courthouse, the number of patent filings rose to seven hundred and ninety-three (793) in 2020. See J. Jonas Anderson & Paul R. Gugliuzza, Federal Judge Seeks Patent Cases, (forthcoming Duke L. J 2021). Professors Anderson and Gugliuzza provide a thorough explanation (and critique) of this sudden ascent. I have a smaller, but nonetheless important, point to make. If the Western District of Texas is going to hear some of patent law’s most important cases, it should not do so in secret. Unfortunately, that appears to have just what happened in one the highest dollar value patent trials in recent history.

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