E.D. Tex. (Judge Gilstrap)

I'll verify the court's profile with several searches before writing.

Good data so far. Let me verify judges, orders, and trial-timing specifics.

Court overview. The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas (E.D. Tex.) sits in the Fifth Circuit for general appeals, with patent appeals going to the Federal Circuit. Its courthouses are in Tyler (district headquarters), Marshall, Beaumont, Sherman, Texarkana, Lufkin, and Plano; Marshall and Texarkana carry most of the patent load. E.D. Tex. is currently the busiest patent venue in the country. Per Lex Machina's 2025 and 2026 Patent Litigation Reports, the district led all districts in new patent filings in 2023 and 2024 (1,069 cases in 2024, roughly one-fifth of all U.S. patent suits) and fielded 1,245 patent cases in 2025 — about 25.7% of the national total and more than the Western District of Texas and District of Delaware combined. RPX's 2024 data-bytes likewise rank E.D. Tex. first for both overall and NPE litigation. Note that published counts differ by methodology (cases filed vs. defendants added), and Docket Navigator/IAM reported 1,070 E.D. Tex. cases in 2024 versus Lex Machina's 1,069.

Docket reputation. E.D. Tex. was the original "rocket docket" for patent cases in the early 2000s, and it retains a speed advantage, though it has narrowed. IAM/Docket Navigator data reported E.D. Tex. reaching jury verdict in a median of 21 months in 2024 — the shortest of any district and roughly 16 months below the 37-month national average. Federal judicial time-to-trial figures cited in recent PTAB filings show the district at 19.0 months (2023), 21.3 months (2024), and 25.9 months (2025), i.e., lengthening as volume rises; the same filings (party-generated, so read with caution) assert that in one recent 14-trial sample only one Gilstrap jury trial began as scheduled. On transfer, E.D. Tex. historically granted § 1404(a) transfers at rates near the national average and sometimes above it (roughly 40–50% in 2011–2016 per Siebman/Smith data), and after TC Heartland (2017) its grant rate on venue motions spiked well above other districts (Lex Machina reported 84% in the 90 days post-decision vs. 70% elsewhere). Federal Circuit mandamus remains a real check: a 2008–2021 study found § 1404(a) mandamus petitions from the Eastern and Western Districts of Texas were granted 37.3% of the time, versus 11.5% for all other districts. Trials in the district are overwhelmingly jury trials — nationally, 2024 saw 76 patent jury verdicts versus 22 bench trials — and E.D. Tex. docket control orders routinely set jury selection dates, though I could not verify a district-specific jury/bench split.

Local rules and procedures. The district's Rules of Practice for Patent Cases (cited as "P.R. __"), first promulgated by Judge T. John Ward in Marshall in 2001 and adopted district-wide effective February 22, 2005, are the model most other districts copied. Key features: automatic infringement contentions under P.R. 3-1 with accompanying document production (P.R. 3-2), invalidity contentions under P.R. 3-3, and an express software-limitation carve-out (P.R. 3-1(g)/3-3(e)) allowing source-code-based supplementation after production. Claim construction runs on a fixed track — P.R. 4-1 term exchange, P.R. 4-2 preliminary constructions, P.R. 4-3 joint prehearing statement, P.R. 4-4 discovery, P.R. 4-5 briefs, P.R. 4-6 hearing — with the court's Appendix C modifications retiming P.R. 4-1 to 140 days before the Markman hearing. Amendment of contentions after a construction ruling is permitted without leave in narrow windows (30 days for infringement, 50 days for invalidity) under P.R. 3-6. The court also uses a Model Order limiting asserted claims and prior art — for example, capping asserted claims at five per patent and sixteen total — and offers a fast-track "Track B" schedule; Hatch-Waxman cases get their own provisions under P.R. 3-8, with final pretrial targeted near 24 months. Individual judges add standing orders and case-specific Docket Control and Discovery Orders.

Notable cases and trends. The tracked sample here is a single plaintiff's campaign — six CommWorks Solutions, LLC matters against CommScope, ASUSTeK, Texas Instruments (twice), EarthLink, and Cable One. Every one of the six terminated by dismissal, several with prejudice; none reached a tracked trial outcome, which is consistent with the national pattern (Lex Machina: 71% of the 3,593 patent cases terminated in 2024 ended in settlement or dismissal rather than judgment). On the public side, prominent district rulings include Judge Gilstrap's post-TC Heartland venue decision in Raytheon v. Cray, which upheld venue based on an in-district sales representative's home office and was vacated by the Federal Circuit in In re Cray (2017), the decision that gave the "regular and established place of business" test its current three-part structure. RPX reports that in 2025, five of the ten largest patent damages awards nationwide were tried before Judge Gilstrap, with six of the top ten arising in the district.

Judges. Judge J. Rodney Gilstrap (Marshall) is the dominant figure: Lex Machina counted 795 new patent cases assigned to him in 2024 (about 21% of all U.S. patent filings, six times the next judge) and 1,029 in 2025, with roughly 20% of the national patent docket over the last three years. He served as Chief Judge from 2018 to 2025; Amos L. Mazzant III (Sherman) is now Chief Judge per the court's own judges-succession page. Other significant patent dockets include Robert W. Schroeder III (Texarkana), whose patent caseload grew from 25 cases in 2022 to 153 in 2024, and Mazzant, both ranked in the national top ten for new patent cases. Magistrate Judge Roy S. Payne (Marshall) handles many Markman hearings and pretrial conferences in Gilstrap-assigned cases. On outcomes, Lex Machina's 2024 Albright-vs-Gilstrap addendum found that among substantive resolutions in cases terminated 2019–2023, claimants prevailed more often than claim defendants before Judge Gilstrap, and that Gilstrap cases reached claim construction in a median of 358 days; that finding covers substantive terminations only, not overall win rates, and the report does not support broader labels about judicial temperament.