According to an article published today by Law360, there have already been more patent cases filed in the District of Massachusetts this year than in all of 2016. This may be the result of the changes brought about to venue in patent cases by the Supreme Court’s TC Heartland decision, which limited venue in patent cases to districts in which a defendant corporation is incorporated or districts in which the defendant committed acts of infringement and has a regular and established place of business. According to RPX, filings in the Eastern District of Texas – previously the busiest patent district by far – dropped from 57% of cases filed between January 1 and May 22, 2017 (the date TC Heartland issued) to 28% of all new filings in the nine weeks post-TC Heartland. While the sample sizes are small, this seems to point to a busier patent litigation practice for Massachusetts.
