Federal Judiciary

Papers and Seminars: What Is It About Patent Venue...?

By Michael C. Smith

It has already been a busy year on the speaking front, even with a busy trial schedule as local counsel in federal court here in Marshall and Tyler - we picked a jury in a patent case which resulted in a defense JMOL last month and picked another jury last Monday for a trial starting on the 17th - both Marshall cases in Judge Ward's court.  Thankfully two other February patent cases - one before Judge Ward and one before Judge Davis - have been moved to April (with the one previously before Judge Ward reassigned to visiting Judge Rader from the Federal Circuit). 

In January I presented Intellectual Property and Patent Litigation Update at the State Bar's Litigation Update seminar in Austin on January 22. It was the first time I had covered that topic in full in a while, and the updating on both substantive and procedural issues affecting patent litigation since 2007 took a lot of last fall.  I also accordioned that paper down into the Patent Litigation article which was part of the 2009: Year in Review feature in the January issue of the Texas Bar Journal.  Both papers had as a major component the recent venue caselaw coming out of the Federal Circuit and the Eastern District.

The venue sections were beefed up even more to reflect the December and January Federal Circuit opinions on venue in patent cases for March's Venue Selection Post In re Volkswagen.  Has It Impacted Life in East Texas? at the Advanced Intellectual Property Law course (also in Austin) set for March 5.  But that paper actually gets previewed a month earlier (also in Austin as luck would have it) at the Austin IPLA's February meeting and luncheon at the Westwood Country Club next Tuesday, February 16 as Venue Selection in Patent Cases Post In re Volkswagen.  I am told that registration begins at 11:30 a.m., with the luncheon at noon and that pre-registration is available on the web at www.austin-ipla.org under the "Events" tab.  That presentation will, in turn, be further updated as necessary after it completes its off-Broadway run in Texas for when it hits the big city at the AIPLA spring meeting in New York City on May 6-8, 2010 (not in Austin).  (Sorry - was in New York last week for work on a case and I'm still in a New York state of mind.  If my phone worked, I'd post pictures of the WTC work that went on all night outside my hotel room.  But I digress..). 

On a totally different front (so I'm still digressing, but on a somewhat related topic), I'll be reprising last year's paper on dispositive motions at the Federal Court Practice seminar on May 10 in Dallas.  This year I'll be focusing more on motion practice and local rules, using dispositive motions as an example of both.  Federal procedural issues are a favorite topic of mine since my practice is mostly as local counsel in federal court, and will be a nice palate cleanser after four straight papers focusing on patent venue.

Full post as published by Eastern District of Texas Federal Court Practice on February 08, 2010 (boomark / email).