Chief Justice John Roberts To Tackle Patent Laws

In a year-end report on the federal judiciary, US Chief Justice John Roberts said he would direct the Judicial Conference of the United States to address how venues are chosen for patent cases, reported Reuters.

Calling the issue “arcane but important,” Roberts acknowledged concerns that patent plaintiffs are funneling cases into a Waco, Texas federal court, and promised the Judicial Conference would work with Congress to make changes if needed.

The ranking members of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Intellectual Property, Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont and Republican Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina, had asked Roberts in November to review potential patent forum shopping, citing the “extreme concentration of patent litigation” in US District Judge Alan Albright’s court and the “unseemly and inappropriate conduct that has accompanied this phenomenon.”

The senators said nearly 25% of all US patent litigation is pending before Albright, and that he has solicited cases at lawyers’ meetings and “repeatedly ignored binding case law” in denying transfer motions, among other things.

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