D. Del. (originally Judge Leonard P. Stark; later Judge Gregory B. Williams)

I'll verify the District of Delaware's current patent litigation profile before writing.

Court overview

The U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware (D. Del.) sits in Wilmington (J. Caleb Boggs Federal Building, 844 N. King Street) and is in the Third Circuit, with patent appeals going to the Federal Circuit. It is one of the two or three highest-volume patent venues in the country and by most measures the leading venue for patent suits filed by operating companies. RPX's Q1 2025 data byte placed Delaware second in overall patent litigation and first among the top districts for operating-company filings, with roughly a quarter of all patent defendants added nationwide; Docket Navigator data reported by DLA Piper shows total U.S. district court patent filings rising from 3,120 (2023) to 4,526 (2025), with Delaware among the top venues throughout. The court's own 2026 Annual Report notes civil filings rose about 10% in 2025 (driven in part by IP cases and prisoner petitions) and that Delaware continues to carry one of the highest patent-case counts per active judgeship. Unlike E.D. Tex., Delaware's docket is dominated by competitor/operating-company litigation plus a very large Hatch-Waxman/ANDA caseload.

Patent docket reputation

Delaware is not a "rocket docket" in the E.D. Tex./W.D. Tex. sense. A 2025 PTAB filing cited a 40.2-month median time to trial in D. Del., and Judge Williams's November 2022 order in Cisco v. Ramot cited AO data showing Delaware's weighted case filings per judgeship at 873 (12 months ended June 30, 2022) versus 693 in E.D. Tex. — congestion that cut in favor of transfer under the Jumara factors. That same order is a useful window into transfer practice: applying Jumara, the court found three factors favored transfer to Texas but denied the motion, weighing the parties' connections to Delaware more heavily. Delaware decides claim construction by the judge (per Markman), not the jury, and the district is known for a comparatively high rate of cases that actually reach trial for a top patent venue — a Buffalo Law Review study of 2012–2016 filings found about 4% of D. Del. patent cases ended in trial, the highest among the top venues studied, alongside D.N.J. I have not found a current, citable Lex Machina or Unified Patents plaintiff-win-rate analysis for D. Del. specific to 2025–26, so I won't characterize the bench as plaintiff- or defendant-leaning.

Local rules and procedures

Delaware has no separate Patent Local Rules. Instead, the court's Default Standard for Discovery (patent) sets deadlines for identification of accused products and asserted patents, core technical documents, initial claim charts, and invalidity contentions, and most judges incorporate those deadlines into individualized form scheduling orders posted on the court's website (e.g., Judge Williams's form scheduling order, with joint proposed orders emailed to chambers). A key distinction from E.D. Tex. is that Delaware's early contentions are expressly "initial" and may be supplemented; the Arendi v. LG line (Fed. Cir.) illustrates the consequences of failing to supplement under Section 4(c). Individual practices vary substantially: Judge Andrews uses word-limited claim construction briefs, Judge Noreika requires all intrinsic evidence in a single joint appendix and rejects bare "plain and ordinary meaning" positions, and multi-patent cases are frequently subject to phased narrowing protocols (e.g., the Virentem Ventures v. YouTube protocol). The most consequential recent procedural development is Chief Judge Colm F. Connolly's April 2022 standing orders requiring third-party litigation funding disclosure and extensive corporate ownership disclosure, applied only in his cases; RPX and academic analyses link these (plus the court's IP Edge investigation and referrals for discipline) to a sharp drop in NPE filings in Delaware, even as operating-company filings rebounded. Judge Connolly also requires good cause to amend contentions and uses a ranked "one-and-done" summary judgment practice.

Notable cases and rulings

The tracked case is Cisco Systems, Inc. et al. v. Ramot at Tel Aviv University Ltd., C.A. No. 21-1365 (D. Del., filed Sept. 28, 2021; originally Judge Leonard P. Stark, later reassigned to Judge Gregory B. Williams, docketed "GBW"). It is a declaratory judgment action by Cisco and Acacia Communications against Ramot over the '872 linearized optical digital-to-analog modulator patent, one of a sprawling series of suits between the parties in Delaware and E.D. Tex. Noteworthy developments: the court granted in part and denied in part Cisco's motion to stay pending IPR; Judge Williams's Nov. 14, 2022 memorandum order denied Cisco's transfer motion and described the parties' "forum shopping machinations" as "blatant," finding that Cisco "abused the Declaratory Judgment Act by running to the courthouse at 12:01 a.m." on the day the '998 patent issued; and E.D. Tex. (Chief Judge Gilstrap) granted Cisco's first-to-file motion to transfer Ramot's parallel infringement action to Delaware. On the PTAB side, the Board denied Cisco's IPRs of the '535 patent on § 314(a) parallel-litigation grounds, and the Federal Circuit affirmed the IPR appeals by Rule 36 in April 2026 (Cisco v. Ramot, Nos. 2024-1726 et al.). More broadly, Delaware remains the leading ANDA/Hatch-Waxman venue; biopharma disputes such as the GSK v. Pfizer/BioNTech mRNA case before Judge Williams have drawn press coverage, though I'd treat secondary reporting on case outcomes cautiously.

Judges

Current Delaware district judges with substantial patent dockets include Chief Judge Colm F. Connolly (disclosure and case-management orders), Judge Richard G. Andrews (heavy patent and ANDA docket; strict enforcement of D. Del. Local Rule 7.1.3 briefing requirements), Judge Maryellen Noreika (former Morris Nichols patent litigator; demanding claim construction practice), and Judge Gregory B. Williams, who inherited the tracked Cisco v. Ramot case and is the assigning judge on many current D. Del. patent matters. Magistrate Judge Christopher J. Burke handles a meaningful share of Delaware patent work, including Markman and discovery disputes. Judge Stark, who originally presided over the tracked case, left the district in 2022 and now sits on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. On staffing: President Biden's December 2024 veto of the JUDGES Act left Delaware's long-standing judgeship shortage unaddressed; competing 2025 bills (H.R. 1702 and H.R. 1929) would each add two Delaware judgeships, neither enacted as of the sources reviewed.