Patent decision bad for East Texas hospitality; Houston Chronicle, May 25, 2017

Chris Tomlinson, Houston Chronicle; 

Patent decision bad for East Texas hospitality

"Business travelers are the mainstay of the hospitality business and the U.S. Supreme Court just dealt a blow to East Texas hoteliers and restaurateurs.

The number of out-of-town attorneys and paralegals trekking to Tyler and Marshall will likely plummet now that the court has limited where patent trolls can use the judiciary to extort money from major corporations...

The patent-holders don't choose East Texas because they live there, nor are the defendant companies based in East Texas. The plaintiffs choose the district because the judges move through the cases quickly and the juries consistently rule against big companies.

The plaintiffs get away with it because the products with the intellectual property in question are sold in the district. So every month, dozens of attorneys and paralegals make the trip to East Texas to argue the cases they couldn't settle out of court.

But no more. Maybe."

The Supreme Court’s big ruling on ‘patent trolls’ will rock businesses everywhere; Washington Post, May 23, 2017

Brian Fung, Washington Post; The Supreme Court’s big ruling on ‘patent trolls’ will rock businesses everywhere

"So what does the Supreme Court's ruling mean for this system?

It's a big deal, particularly for smaller companies. The court voted unanimously to say that patent lawsuits should be tried where the defending company is based, rather than in a court of the plaintiff's choosing.

Legal analysts say this decision could shift a huge number of cases away from “plaintiff-friendly” districts and toward more “neutral” venues where a defending company stands a better chance of fending off a suit.

“From here out,” according to Walter Olson, a senior fellow at the libertarian Cato Institute, “defendants can still be sued in a district such as E.D. Tex. if they have a regular and established place of business in it, but the decision is likely to shrink what I called in my January preview a ‘jackpot patent litigation sector.’ ”"

Look Who's Winning A New Generation Of U.S.-China Patent Disputes; Forbes, 7/5/16

Ralph Jennings, Forbes; Look Who's Winning A New Generation Of U.S.-China Patent Disputes:

"Chinese officials now as ever don’t like being told by foreigners, whether companies or government agencies, that their business people are breaking laws that hurt peers offshore. Now the Communist Party-backed legal system may want to bite back at the old allegations. Chinese smartphone developers conservatively took a 17% share of the world’s 349,000 smartphone sales in the first quarter, per data by market research firm Gartner, so their lawyers will be hard to ignore. Tech hardware firms tend to do a lot of suing anyway – just part of business...

Foreign business people are watching the Qualcomm case as another bellwether, like the Apple cases, for how Chinese courts will rule and watch for any political overtones. “If, now that Qualcomm has met those demands, China’s courts don’t uphold Qualcomm’s IP rights, then it will send a resounding message to other foreign firms that there’s really nothing you can do to protect your technology there,” says Mark Natkin, managing director with market research firm Marbridge Consulting in Beijing."

Study: Lawsuits Down, But Non-Practicing Entities Buying Patents At 'Steady Rate'; Forbes, 4/21/16

Michael Carroll, Forbes; Study: Lawsuits Down, But Non-Practicing Entities Buying Patents At 'Steady Rate' :

"The amount of patent-infringement litigation took a noticeable dip in the first quarter of this year compared to the same time period in previous years, but whether the numbers reflect a true downturn rather than a temporary hiccup remains to be seen – especially considering prospective plaintiffs are still amassing patents at their normal rate.

That’s the conclusion of an analysis of patent litigation volume reported by RPX Corp., a patent aggregator that helps clients manage and mitigate risks associated with patent-infringement lawsuits.

The company tracks litigation by non-practicing entities, or NPEs – those who hold patents and launch patent-infringement lawsuits against people or companies for allegedly using or profiting from an element of the patents the NPE holds. As a rule, NPEs obtain patents for products but don’t develop or market them.

Some refer to NPEs as “patent trolls.” RPX has spent more than $2 billion to acquire more than 15,000 patents in order to help companies avoid litigation. They both purchase patents before they can be obtained by non-practicing entities that will target their clients with lawsuits and obtain patents from NPEs after a lawsuit has been filed."