[magicalist]

> These days it seems to be favored for being a relatively fast docket and having judges with more patent-expertise.

Uh, neither of those are really true, the fast docket is especially wrong.

In fact, there are a host of reasons why the Eastern District is popular (your source is wildly out of date due to changes since 2010). There's a reason that 44% of all patent cases for the first half of 2015 were filed in the district[1]. Juries do indeed rule for defendants there a decent amount of the time, but the rules tend to be very plaintiff-friendly in the sense that they make it very expensive to go to court at all, making settling seem all the more attractive (which just so happened to be the exact business plan of the article's subject, eDekka LLC :) Lots of sources linked in [1]

[1] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/08/deep-dive-why-we-need-...

[throwawaykf05]

Have the statistics changed since 2010? While the EFF goes on about "plaintiff-friendly" rules, it presents no link to any statistics on the win rates or settlement rates. It mentions statistics on how ED Texas rules differently on different motions, but what matters are the outcomes compared to other districts.

Even then the differences in statistics on rulings I believe can be explained by the relative sophistication of the plaintiffs who file there -- mostly patent trolls. Since trolls typically assert patents they acquire, they will go for "better" patents, and they can simply choose different patents to acquire when something like Alice comes along. Practicing entities have no such luxury and are stuck with the patents they were issued.

Lemley (the author I linked previously) and others actually have studies on these things. I'll have to dig them back up.

[magicalist]

> Have the statistics changed since 2010?

Oh yes: http://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/article/Patent-case...

> Even then the differences in statistics on rulings I believe can be explained by the relative sophistication of the plaintiffs who file there -- mostly patent trolls

Absolutely trolls love it there. No clue what that has to do with your original point, though: the venue is absolutely advantageous to the plaintiffs and the rocket docket is a thing of the past.

[monochromatic]

The fact that it has patent-savvy judges is absolutely a reason why many plaintiffs file there. Ignorant judges are unpredictable.

[magicalist]

But there aren't especially patent-savvy judges there when compared to many other districts, like the District of Delaware or the Eastern District of Virginia, both also very experienced as patent-litigating districts of choice.