Comment by samplonius | Hacker News Reader

Comment by samplonius | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

> 2. For much of this, we can thank the loosening standards imposed over the past two decades by a specialized patent appeals court that has given overblown...

No, this is just a common misconception. If you look at the history of rulings from east Texas, you will see they invalidate a higher percentage of patents than other courts in the US. East Texas just implemented rules on length of filings and length of arguments to cut out most of the crap out of patent cases, making the process cheaper and faster for both sides.

So, if you have an iffy patent, and you want to have the best odds of winning, don't file in east Texas. But expect to pay a lot more.

I guess the east Texas model is bad for lawyers who file thousands of pages of "supporting material", and then get paid $200/hr to read it. But how much of this supporting material was actually relevant? Not much, which is why the judge in east Texas was able to enforce page limits.

The east Texas model is the right way to rule on patent cases. But the patent system needs to be supported by better laws.

> > 2. For much of this, we can thank the loosening standards imposed over the past two decades by a specialized patent appeals court that has given overblown...

> No, this is just a common misconception. If you look at the history of rulings from east Texas, you will see they invalidate a higher percentage of patents than other courts in the US.

The "specialized patent appeals court" that GP is referring to as having imposed "loosening standards" over the past two decades is certainly the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, not the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, for the following reasons:

1. The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas is a trial court, not an appeals court,

2. The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas is a regular federal court, not a specialized patent court (even if it may have attracted some attention because of patent litigation that has gravitated there),

3. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit is an appeals court, not a trial court,

4. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit is unique among the Circuit Courts of Appeals in that it has national jurisdiction for appeals of certain classes of cases (including, notably, patent cases) based on subject matter.

So, however interesting your essay on the merits of the patent procedures of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas might be, it really is completely irrelevant to the post you are responding to, which wasn't talking about that court at all.

Sorry, but I don't think you're right. The data shows that in east Texas, patent holders win injunctions or damages nearly 2x of the time. That's why they go to trial there.

Since you didn't provide data to back up your assertion, I will provide a link to mine: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/09/19...

The author of that article, James Bessen has been called out on questionable methods or analysis in some of his studies. For instance, he's the guy who created the "trolls cost 29 billion" meme out of thin air, the debunking of which [1, 2] never got much press.

Here's a study that directly refutes the claims article from another researcher with a lot more data:

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1597919

It finds that Eastern District of Texas is not even in the top 5 when it comes to plaintiff win rates.

1. http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2117421

2. http://blog.patentology.com.au/2012/06/29-billion-us-troll-t...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com