D. Del. (Judge Gregory B. Williams)

I'll research the District of Delaware's patent practice and Judge Williams's docket.

Let me gather more detail on Judge Williams, D. Del. procedures, and the tracked cases.

Now let me research the tracked cases and D. Del. transfer/trial statistics.

District of Delaware — Patent Litigation Profile

Court overview. The U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware sits in Wilmington and sits in the Third Circuit (Federal Circuit for patent appeals). It is one of the most significant patent forums in the country despite having one of the smallest benches of any major patent district — the court's own 2026 Annual Report notes Delaware has among the highest patent-case counts per active judgeship. According to Docket Navigator data cited in a recent practice survey, nationwide district court patent filings fell from 3,977 in 2020 to 3,120 in 2023, then rebounded; RPX reports Delaware was second in overall patent defendant additions in Q1 2025 (26%, behind only E.D. Tex.) and was the leading district for operating-company suits, accounting for roughly a quarter of Q1 2026 filings. Delaware also carries a large Hatch-Waxman load — Docket Navigator/Justia data show roughly 1,389 ANDA cases and about 10,700 IP matters docketed there — and FBA-source reporting puts Delaware at about 39% of all ANDA cases nationwide.

Docket reputation. Delaware is not a "rocket docket" in the E.D. Tex./W.D. Tex. sense; it is a high-volume, generally slower-moving docket, and I could not verify a current median time-to-trial figure from the sources reviewed for this profile. Its docket composition shifted materially after Chief Judge Colm F. Connolly's April 2022 standing orders requiring detailed ownership/control disclosures and litigation-funding disclosure in his cases, followed by his well-documented investigation into IP Edge LLC and affiliates — developments RPX credits with driving a large share of NPE filers away from Delaware. Delaware remains the venue of choice for competitor/operating-company litigation. On parallel PTAB proceedings, Delaware's schedules have at times cut against petitioners: in Cisco v. Ramot, the PTAB denied institution under § 314(a)/Fintiv because the district court trial was set to begin roughly six months before any final written decision. I did not locate reliable D. Del.-specific § 1404(a) grant-rate data or a jury-vs.-bench split in this research pass, so I flag those as unverified.

Local rules and procedures. Delaware has no separate Patent Local Rules; instead it uses the court-wide Default Standard for Discovery and judge-specific form Rule 16 scheduling orders, generally with fill-in-the-blank infringement/invalidity contention, claim-construction, and pretrial deadlines. Practice varies by judge: Judge Andrews' form patent order addresses claim construction but historically omitted contention requirements, while Judges Stark and Noreika used more detailed contention and narrowing provisions. Timing standards are a matter of judicial practice rather than rule — Delaware form orders commonly state that the court will issue the claim construction order within 60 days of the Markman hearing. Several judges impose issue-narrowing protocols (modeled on Virentem Ventures v. YouTube); Judge Williams, for example, endorsed a phased narrowing approach in Guardant Health v. Tempus AI, capping asserted claims, prior art references, and § 102/103 arguments before and after claim construction, and extending narrowing to § 112 defenses. Briefing, page limits, and pretrial procedure follow the court's Local Rules (e.g., L.R. 7.1.1 certification, L.R. 16.3 pretrial order).

Notable tracked cases and rulings. The four tracked matters are: Ramot at Tel Aviv University Ltd. v. Acacia Communications, Inc. (1:21-cv-00295, filed Feb. 26, 2021, originally assigned to Judge Stark); Peregrine Data LLC v. Lytx, Inc. (1:24-cv-01177-GBW, filed Oct. 22, 2024, closed April 3, 2025 — about 164 days); and two Peregrine Data LLC v. Motive Technologies, Inc. matters (filed April 22, 2025; dismissed/terminated). The Peregrine matters illustrate the short-lived NPE pattern typical of Delaware filings, where cases frequently resolve or dismiss within months rather than proceeding to judgment. Most noteworthy on the merits is the Ramot/Cisco dispute, which generated a December 2024 claim construction ruling by Judge Williams holding certain claims indefinite, and an October 23, 2025 summary judgment opinion in Cisco Systems, Inc. v. Ramot at Tel Aviv University, Ltd., C.A. No. 21-1365-GBW, denying summary judgment of no invalidity and holding that secret third-party sales can trigger the pre-AIA § 102(b) on-sale bar so long as the sold product embodies the claimed invention (relying on J.A. LaPorte, Inc. v. Norfolk Dredging Co.). Judge Williams also dismissed Acuitas Therapeutics' declaratory judgment action against GSK units for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction, leaving the core GSK v. Pfizer/BioNTech mRNA case in Delaware to proceed.

Judges. Patent work is concentrated among a handful of jurists. Judge Gregory B. Williams (nominated April 2022; confirmed July 20, 2022; commissioned Sept. 1, 2022; former Fox Rothschild partner and D. Del. special master) is the judge on all four tracked matters and presides in Wilmington; he came to the bench with a noted IP and commercial litigation background. Chief Judge Colm F. Connolly is the most consequential figure in recent Delaware patent practice because of his 2022 disclosure orders and the IP Edge investigation. Judge Maryellen Noreika is associated with detailed contention/narrowing practice (the Virentem protocol). Judge Richard G. Andrews is a long-serving patent hand whose form scheduling order is widely used. Judge Leonard P. Stark, who handled the original Ramot action and for years ran a prominent patent docket, was elevated to the Federal Circuit in 2022. Per published RPX, Docket Navigator, and court-report sources, no available Lex Machina/Unified Patents analysis identified in this pass supports characterizing any of these judges as systematically plaintiff- or defendant-friendly.