C.D. Cal. (Judge Kenly K. Kato)

Central District of California — Patent Litigation Profile

Court overview. The U.S. District Court for the Central District of California sits in the Ninth Circuit and covers Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties — roughly 19.3 million people, the largest federal district by population. It has courthouses in Los Angeles, Santa Ana and Riverside, and had 28 authorized Article III judgeships as of its November 2023 announcement, with two vacancies at that time (cacd.uscourts.gov). The district has long been one of the nation's busiest IP venues: it led all districts in patent filings in the 2000–2008 window studied by Prof. David Schwartz, and it consistently appears in the top handful of districts by new patent cases (see N.Y. IPLA 2025 panel materials; RPX 2025 Data Byte). In the 2025 NPE-only filing tables, however, Unified Patents' 2025 in Review puts the leaders at E.D. Tex. (44.2%), W.D. Tex. (17.5%), D. Del. (8.7%), N.D. Tex. (3.8%) and N.D. Cal. (3.5%) — C.D. Cal. did not make the top five. RPX's 2025 Data Byte similarly shows C.D. Cal. in the low single digits of nationwide defendant additions. Treat the district as a large, steady docket rather than a magnet venue today.

Reputation: not a rocket docket. C.D. Cal. is not a rocket docket in the E.D. Tex./W.D. Tex. sense. Its distinguishing institutional feature is a Patent Program: under General Order No. 21-11, the Chief Judge designates district judges who volunteer to receive patent cases, which are then assigned on a district-wide patent wheel, with designated magistrate judges handling referred discovery (cacd.uscourts.gov "Patent Program"). The Program grew out of a pilot begun around 2011. Trial timing varies by judge rather than by district rule — an FBA-LA panel reported that Judge Selna and Judge Holcomb generally set trial dates at the outset (Holcomb roughly 18 months out), Judge Kronstadt sets trial after discovery and while dispositive motions are pending, and Judge Wu sets it at the Markman stage (Mikulka & Thomas, FBA-LA, 2023). Published judge-level data corroborates that trials are rare and slow to arrive: Lex Machina statistics filed in Google v. Sonos (IPR2026-00020/21) show Judge Kronstadt's 455 patent cases with only 11 trials (median 1,292 days from filing) and 71% resolved by likely settlement. On the plaintiff/defendant axis, I found no current Lex Machina, Unified Patents or Reuters analysis supporting a characterization of C.D. Cal. as a distinctly plaintiff-friendly or defense-friendly venue; older commentary is mixed, and an often-cited 46.3% claim-construction reversal rate for 2000–2008 (Daily Journal/Milbank reprint) is badly dated and should not be relied on today.

Local rules and procedures. There are no district-wide patent local rules — a deliberate choice the court has historically defended (the Daily Journal piece quotes then-Judge Stephen Wilson arguing local patent rules are "form over substance"). Instead, Patent Program judges issue individual standing patent rules, most of which are adapted from the N.D. Cal. model. A representative example posted on the court's site is Judge Andrew Guilford's Standing Patent Rules: infringement contentions within 14 days of the scheduling-conference order, invalidity contentions about 14 days after the scheduling conference, cross-service of disputed terms, mandatory meet-and-confer narrowing with a cap of 10 most significant terms, a Joint Claim Construction and Prehearing Statement, simultaneous opening briefs (25 pages) and responsive briefs (10 pages), a 45-minute-per-side presumptive time limit, optional "hot tub" expert examination, and a Markman hearing set roughly 119 days after the scheduling conference. Judge Otis Wright II's standing order instead adopts the N.D. Cal. Patent Local Rules outright; Judge Josephine Staton's order uses a lengthened variant (scholarship notes roughly a 300-day claim-construction track). Use the specific assigned judge's order, not a district rulebook. General civil practice features worth noting: all discovery disputes are referred to a magistrate judge whose rulings are reviewed for clear error (L.R. 72-2), and many judges issue tentative rulings before hearing, which counsel report are sometimes revised at argument.

Notable tracked case. The single tracked matter here is Fleet Connect Solutions LLC v. CalAmp Corp., No. 2:25-cv-04890 (C.D. Cal., filed 2025-05-28), currently open and stayed. Fleet Connect is a repeat patent plaintiff, but the sources I reviewed do not establish the basis for the stay (a parallel IPR or the defendant's 2024 Chapter 11 restructuring are plausible but unverified — treat the reason as unknown). More broadly, the district's highest-profile recent patent work includes Masimo Corp. v. Apple Inc. before Judge James V. Selna, which appears in a 2025 Keker Van Nest CLE compilation of the year's top patent verdicts, and Sandpiper CDN, LLC v. Google LLC, No. 2:24-cv-03951-AB-RAO, where Judge André Birotte Jr. in June 2025 declined a full stay pending IPR and instead granted only a short pause, reasoning that the court did not want to "put a thumb on the scale in the new bifurcated procedures." That ruling is a useful data point on this district's relatively discretionary approach to IPR stays.

Judges. Prominent Patent Program judges, all reliably identified in court and bar-association sources: James V. Selna (senior status; long-serving patent hand, strict on continuances), John A. Kronstadt (senior status; the heaviest patent docket in the district per Lex Machina — 455 patent cases), John W. Holcomb (Riverside/Santa Ana; sets trial dates early), George H. Wu (senior status; sets trial at Markman and defers to party-proposed schedules), and André Birotte Jr. Others with meaningful patent exposure include R. Gary Klausner, Otis D. Wright II, Josephine L. Staton, Mark C. Scarsi, and Michael W. Fitzgerald; Magistrate Judge Michael R. Wilner was a designated Patent Program discovery judge. Judge Kenly K. Kato — the judge named for this tracked case — was confirmed on November 7, 2023, commissioned November 17, 2023, and sits in Riverside (Eastern Division); before elevation she spent 2014–2023 as a C.D. Cal. magistrate judge, and earlier was a federal public defender and solo practitioner handling criminal defense, civil rights and employment matters (FJC; cacd.uscourts.gov). Caveat: I could not confirm from any published source whether Judge Kato is currently designated to the Patent Program, and I found no judge-specific patent statistics, standing patent rules, or Federal Circuit track record for her. Any claim about her patent-case tendencies would be speculation.