A Crackdown on Patently Absurd Lawsuits

For more than a decade, companies that buy up patents and use them to sue deep-pocketed corporations for infringement have gone out of their way to plead their cases in the Eastern District of Texas. They’d be crazy not to. Judges and jurors who hear trials at the federal courthouses in Marshall and Tyler are considered the friendliest in the land when it comes to handing down big verdicts in favor of litigious patent holders.

The Texas court, which tilts heavily toward protecting individual property rights, has done little to discourage patent owners who sue scores of companies at once in hopes that most will settle rather than shell out the $1 million or more it would take to fight it out in court. And many do settle: Only a sliver of patent cases make it to trial. The judges don’t seem to mind when plaintiffs whose businesses are based in faraway cities file in Texas for the purpose of increasing their chances of winning.