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Comment by k-mcgrady | Hacker News Reader

>> That's important because the venue is full of nepotism and extremely plaintiff-friendly.

Could somebody explain this point in detail? Surely the law is the law regardless of where in the country a case is heard.

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There is still a lot individual venues can do, a big part of why EDTX became a thing is that the jury pool was so unsophisticated and would often give lots of deference to an inventors personal story over the technical details of the case. That, and judges are given wide latitude in how they run their court and those judges all adopted plaintiff friendly policies in general. There is a good reason why it became a go to destination, there is a lot to a patent trial - or any trial - beyond what 'the law' is. Edit: and above all of that, the EDTX had developed a cottage industry of sorts to support and maintain the high level of patent litigation. Did you ever see the story of Samsung sponsoring the skating rink accross from the court house?

Did the rink have rounded corners?

Yes. If you got close to the edge you slid right off. They had to build a custom Zamboni for the thing.

The law is a bunch of words that can be interpreted many different ways.

The judicial branch is in charge of that interpretation. That interpretation is based on the wording of laws passed by Congress combined with the prescident set by previous judicial rulings.

The judge in Marshall, TX would find with a strong bias to the plaintiffs side[1]

[1] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/07/why-do-patent-trolls-g...

District court judges are still bound by precedent from the Fed. Cir. and Sup. Ct. in patent cases - that's only part of the story. They also have wide latitude in how they organize and schedule their courts, giving rise to the so-called 'rocket-docket' phenomenon. Speed favors the plaintiff, especially in patent cases, and the EDTX has local rules that favor speedy trials.

Off the top of my head, but I do remember a case in Texas where the son of the Judge was representing the Plaintiff. The judge refused to excuse himself from the case.

Source? I highly doubt that's true. There is a (now retired) judge whose son was a lawyer in EDTX. I'm not aware of any case where the judge refused to recuse himself from a case where his son represented one of the litigants.

Might be true? This doesn't specify whether they worked on the same cases, though. Also seeing articles on Vice & Ars Technica, but neither mention. http://thepriorart.typepad.com/the_prior_art/2008/03/judge-w...

Right, there's a judge whose son is an attorney in the district, but no mention of him presiding over a case where his son is representing a litigant. That would be a serious ethical breach. A judge having a child who is a lawyer in the same district, on the other hand, is perfectly normal.

The son of a federal judge in that district started a law firm that specializes in patent law. Even if his son does not represent clients in front of him, his son makes money, because the judges there did not allow summary judgement for a long time. That judge retired in 2011 but the other judges continued his decisions that make it easier for patent trolls to work.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/07/why-do-patent-trolls-g...

http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/judicial/168087-stopp...

The law is enforced by humans, not by machines. "The law is the law regardless of where in the country a case is heard" is obviously false for all kinds of laws, not just this one. Different humans have different biases.

I am curious what jurisdiction you have experience with where the law is applied so evenhandedly. We could learn from them.

haha! Take a look at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sG9UMMq2dz4

Boy oh boy.

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