The Northern District of Texas was selected as one of fourteen federal district courts for a 10-year patent pilot program. The United States Court’s press release describes the program as functioning in part as follows:
In the pilot program, patent cases filed in participating district courts are initially randomly assigned to all district judges, regardless of whether they have been designated to hear such cases. A judge who is randomly assigned a patent case and is not among the designated judges may decline to accept the case. That case is then randomly assigned to one of the district judges designated to hear patent cases.
This selection will likely serve to increase the number of patent cases that are filed in the Northern District of Texas, and is an exciting development for the Northern District, as well as its IP practitioners.