N.D. Tex.

I'll research this court's patent practice before writing.

N.D. Tex. — Patent Litigation Profile

Court overview. The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas sits in the Fifth Circuit and is headquartered in Dallas, with divisional courthouses in Fort Worth, Amarillo, Lubbock, Abilene, San Angelo and Wichita Falls. It is not a top-tier patent venue, but it is growing. According to Lex Machina's 2026 Patent Litigation Report (as reported by Legal Newsline/The Center Square and The Texas Lawbook), N.D. Tex. patent filings "nearly doubled over two years, rising from 65 cases in 2023 to 125 in 2025," and the district ranked as the ninth busiest federal district for patent cases nationwide for 2023–2025 — behind E.D. Tex. (No. 1), W.D. Tex. (No. 2) and D. Del., even though Texas districts collectively accounted for 40.4% of U.S. patent litigation in that window. RPX's Q3 2025 Data Byte counted N.D. Tex. at roughly 4% of defendants added (21 defendants) that quarter — real but an order of magnitude below the two Texas rocket dockets.

Docket reputation. I found no published Lex Machina, Unified Patents or RPX analysis characterizing N.D. Tex. as either a plaintiff-friendly venue or a "rocket docket" — those labels in the current literature attach to E.D. Tex. and W.D. Tex. District-wide transfer, claim-construction and disposition statistics for N.D. Tex. patent cases are not broken out in the publicly available reports I could verify, so I am not supplying figures here. One older LegalMetric district analysis (circulating as a PTAB exhibit) reported average time-to-termination-by-judgment of ~24 months district-wide, ~27 months in Dallas and ~11 months in Fort Worth, but the sample sizes were in the low single digits per division and the vintage is uncertain; treat it as indicative only. The practical read is a conventional-speed docket that decides most motions on the papers (see LR 7.1(g)) rather than one built around expedited patent trials.

Local rules and procedures. N.D. Tex. does not put patent rules in its Local Civil Rules; they appear in Miscellaneous Order No. 62 (2nd Amended version effective October 1, 2019), which governs patent cases in the Dallas Division (per Practical Law practice notes on Order 62). The sequence mirrors the Texas model: LPR 2-1 conference and initial case management statement; LPR 3-1/3-2 disclosure of asserted claims and preliminary infringement contentions seven days before the initial case management conference; LPR 3-3/3-4 preliminary invalidity contentions 45 days later; LPR 4-1 through 4-6 exchange of terms, preliminary constructions and extrinsic evidence, a joint claim construction and prehearing statement 60 days after invalidity contentions, opening claim construction brief 45 days after the joint statement, responsive/reply briefs at 14 days, and a claim construction hearing that may be set within two weeks of the responsive briefs; final infringement contentions are due 30 days and final invalidity contentions 50 days after the claim construction ruling. Amendments to contentions require the familiar "good cause" showing, and the Order contemplates sanctions for non-compliance. Ordinary civil practice adds LR 7.1(e)–(f) (21-day response, 14-day reply), LR 7.2(c) page limits, LR 56.2(b) (one summary judgment motion per party), and a local-counsel requirement under LR 83.10(a).

Tracked cases and notable rulings. The site's sample list contains two entries for the same matter — Lab Technology LLC v. Solera Holdings, LLC, No. 4:26-cv-00297 (N.D. Tex., filed March 12, 2026) — a § 271 suit by a New Mexico plaintiff asserting U.S. Patent No. 9,219,982 (automatic refreshing of a telephone display) against a Delaware defendant, with both sides demanding a jury. Note a discrepancy worth flagging: the tracked list shows the case as active/pending, but the public docket on Justia and PacerMonitor shows a joint stipulation of dismissal filed April 23, 2026, the case terminated that day, and the AO 120 final-order report sent May 1, 2026. Plaintiff's counsel is the Rabicoff Law firm, a frequent filer in this district (cf. Lab Technology v. u-blox America, No. 4:25-cv-00610). Beyond that, I did not identify a marquee, nationally cited patent merits ruling out of N.D. Tex. in the recent period; the district's most prominent recent high-stakes ruling, Judge Ada Brown's August 2024 order setting aside the FTC's noncompete rule, is an antitrust/administrative case, not patent law.

Judges. The tracked case is assigned to Chief District Judge Reed O'Connor (the docket's 2026 entries carry that title, and the case-note directs filings to "Judge O Connor"). Other judges confirmed to sit in the district, and to maintain published standing orders relevant to patent practice, include Judge Ada Brown, Judge Brantley Starr, Judge Karen Gren Scholer, Judge David C. Godbey, Judge Mark T. Pittman and Judge James Wesley Hendrix (per the court's judge pages as summarized by LawSnap). I could not verify per-judge patent caseload or win-rate data from a published Lex Machina or Unified Patents source, so I am not ranking them by patent experience.