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A lot of complaints about East Texas in here. I've had a few myself since I grew up there. That being said, this isn't the only example of gaming the patent/cou

A lot of complaints about East Texas in here. I've had a few myself since I grew up there. That being said, this isn't the only example of gaming the patent/courts system. Blaming the jurors for being prototypical dumb hicks that some of them are is fun but misses the point. The real problem is that a tech patent case wound up there to begin with. There is definitely no interesting podcasting or other telecomm technology being invented there (Longview); and that isn't the fault of the jurors. These companies set up sham offices in the area to pretend that they belong in the Ninth Circuit court. Fix the courts and you'll improve the situation a bit. Of course, the company was predicated on a sham to begin with, so I'm not sure how you fix that.

mrcsparker 12y ago
I grew up in Houston. East Texas is very different from the rest of Texas. The accent, food, culture are all much more stereotypically southern than north, west, central, or south Texas. Even the BBQ is different - you put sauce on everything. That being said, my comment offers no real information. I just thought that it would be fun to post.
thinkcomp 12y ago
Texas is in the Fifth Circuit, and it's actually the Eastern District of Texas that uninformed patent lawyers target, not the Fifth Circuit overall. See http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/df/US_Court_of_Appeals_and_District_Court_map.svg/1280px-US_Court_of_Appeals_and_District_Court_map.svg.png http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/df/US_....
- fnordfnordfnord 12y ago
  My mistake. Thanks!
cpitman 12y ago
This American Life actually did a pretty good story on patents. I'm pretty sure part of it explained the historical reason for why the ninth circuit gets so many patent cases: patent cases are lower priority on dockets, so if plaintiffs ever wanted their cases heard they needed to find a court that had less higher priority cases to hear.
- AnthonyMouse 12y ago
  Here's the link to the episode. http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/441/when-patents-attack http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/441/w...
georgemcbay 12y ago
I don't think most people see it as the jurors being "dumb hicks" but rather the jurors (a fair number of whom are likely local business owners) having a vested interest in having legal teams from all over the country continue to bring cases to this district to prop up local businesses (which is far more likely to happen if they find for infringement because it the plaintiffs who move the cases there). Wouldn't matter if this sort of thing were happening in NYC or SF (though, practically speaking it would be less likely since the business brought in through the lawsuit treadmill would be far less of the overall local economic pie), it would still be a huge problem. When local jurors find in favor of the plaintiff so often and with a significant amount of those cases being so egregious that circuit courts are later forced to find that "that no reasonable jury could have held the patent valid", then it seems likely there are some fundamental perverse incentives that have to be addressed. [1] see the EFF link that paulgb provided in another post: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/09/after-setback-texas-fight-against-podcasting-patent-troll-will-continue https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/09/after-setback-texas-fi...
- eli 12y ago
  That is a conspiracy theory. I think it far more likely juries are trying their best to apply bad laws to badly issue patents.
  - sk5t 12y ago
    These suits seem to create a pretty clear "us vs. the outsiders" situation, with various side effects such as being able to charge vastly higher rents to the plaintiffs in a small town. Plenty of upside to the townspeople with no downside. As conspiracies go, the formation of this one is fairly predictable.
  - georgemcbay 12y ago
    "That is a conspiracy theory." You could call it that, but to be clear I don't think these people got together and planned this out in advance, I think a confluence of events occurred that resulted in a situation which was beneficial to them and now they act (perhaps even in a mostly non-coordinated way) to maintain and strengthen it... rather predictably.

mrcsparker 12y ago

I grew up in Houston. East Texas is very different from the rest of Texas. The accent, food, culture are all much more stereotypically southern than north, west, central, or south Texas. Even the BBQ is different - you put sauce on everything. That being said, my comment offers no real information. I just thought that it would be fun to post.

thinkcomp 12y ago

Texas is in the Fifth Circuit, and it's actually the Eastern District of Texas that uninformed patent lawyers target, not the Fifth Circuit overall. See http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/df/US_Court_of_Appeals_and_District_Court_map.svg/1280px-US_Court_of_Appeals_and_District_Court_map.svg.png http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/df/US_....

fnordfnordfnord 12y ago
My mistake. Thanks!

cpitman 12y ago

This American Life actually did a pretty good story on patents. I'm pretty sure part of it explained the historical reason for why the ninth circuit gets so many patent cases: patent cases are lower priority on dockets, so if plaintiffs ever wanted their cases heard they needed to find a court that had less higher priority cases to hear.

AnthonyMouse 12y ago
Here's the link to the episode. http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/441/when-patents-attack http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/441/w...

georgemcbay 12y ago

I don't think most people see it as the jurors being "dumb hicks" but rather the jurors (a fair number of whom are likely local business owners) having a vested interest in having legal teams from all over the country continue to bring cases to this district to prop up local businesses (which is far more likely to happen if they find for infringement because it the plaintiffs who move the cases there). Wouldn't matter if this sort of thing were happening in NYC or SF (though, practically speaking it would be less likely since the business brought in through the lawsuit treadmill would be far less of the overall local economic pie), it would still be a huge problem. When local jurors find in favor of the plaintiff so often and with a significant amount of those cases being so egregious that circuit courts are later forced to find that "that no reasonable jury could have held the patent valid", then it seems likely there are some fundamental perverse incentives that have to be addressed. [1] see the EFF link that paulgb provided in another post: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/09/after-setback-texas-fight-against-podcasting-patent-troll-will-continue https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/09/after-setback-texas-fi...

eli 12y ago
That is a conspiracy theory. I think it far more likely juries are trying their best to apply bad laws to badly issue patents.
- sk5t 12y ago
  These suits seem to create a pretty clear "us vs. the outsiders" situation, with various side effects such as being able to charge vastly higher rents to the plaintiffs in a small town. Plenty of upside to the townspeople with no downside. As conspiracies go, the formation of this one is fairly predictable.
- georgemcbay 12y ago
  "That is a conspiracy theory." You could call it that, but to be clear I don't think these people got together and planned this out in advance, I think a confluence of events occurred that resulted in a situation which was beneficial to them and now they act (perhaps even in a mostly non-coordinated way) to maintain and strengthen it... rather predictably.