Overlawyered » Eastern District of Texas

September 16 roundup

Walter Olson — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 15:11:55 +0000

House Judiciary holds hearing on asbestos-claim fraud and abuse, with Prof. Brickman headlining [Main Justice, Legal NewsLine, WSJ law blog, PoL, Brickman testimony]
Endangered species habitat in Nevada: “Elko County wants end to 15-year-old trout case” [AP]
“Why is the Eastern District of Texas home to so many patent trolls?” [Ted Frank/PoL, more] Tech giants say multi-defendant patent suits place them at disadvantage [WSJ Law Blog] Plus: “Patent company has big case, no office” [John O'Brien, Legal NewsLine]
Lawsuit settlement and the lizard brain [Popehat]
“U.S. Commission on Civil Rights Looks Into Eminent Domain Abuses” [Kanner, Somin] U.K.: “Squatters could be good for us all, says judge in empty homes ruling” [Telegraph]
Madison mob silences Roger Clegg at news conference where he releases new study of UW race bias [ABA Journal, Althouse]
Life in Australia: “Another motorized-beer-cooler DUI” [Lowering the Bar]

Tags: asbestos, Australia, Eastern District of Texas, eminent domain, endangered species, Lester Brickman, Nevada, patent trolls, settlement, United Kingdom

September 16 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

East Texas patent venue

Walter Olson — Thu, 18 Nov 2010 14:43:50 +0000

The Federal Circuit appears to be cracking down on a notorious symbol of forum-shopping, according to Richard Samp at Washington Legal Foundation’s Legal Pulse.

Tags: Eastern District of Texas

East Texas patent venue is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Eastern District of Texas

Walter Olson — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 17:13:09 +0000

Explaining the role of the nation’s most famous venue for patent litigation [Brad Feld, Tech Review]

Tags: Eastern District of Texas, patent litigation

Eastern District of Texas is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

October 12 roundup

Walter Olson — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 14:16:37 +0000

Speech-curbing proposals continue to get polite academic reception: NYU’s Jeremy Waldron, big advocate of laws to curb “hate speech”, delivered Holmes Lectures at Harvard this past week [HLS, schedule]
Lawsuit over collectible baseball hit into stands by Phillies’ Ryan Howard, his 200th career homer [Howard Wasserman, PrawfsBlawg; NJLRA]
Orchid-importer prosecution a poster case for the evils of overcriminalization? Maybe not [Ken at Popehat]
Texas State Fair and city of Dallas don’t have to allow evangelist to distribute religious tracts inside the fair, judge rules after three years [Dallas Observer blog]
Drug maker: FDA’s curbs on truthful promotion of off-label uses impair our First Amendment speech rights [Beck and Herrmann and more, Point of Law and more]
Did plaintiff Eolas Technologies go to unusual lengths to ensure Eastern District of Texas venue for its patent litigation? [Joe Mullin, IP Law and Business via Alison Frankel, AmLaw]
Update: “Lesbian Denied Infertility Treatment Settles Lawsuit” [San Diego 6, earlier]
Even in the Ninth Circuit, “psychological injury resulting from a legitimate personnel action” is not compensable [Volokh]

Tags: baseball, crime and punishment, Dallas, Eastern District of Texas, emotional distress, FDA, forum shopping, free speech, Harvard, hate speech, law schools, off-label, patent litigation, prosecution, workers' compensation

October 12 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Troll Tracker blog suit settles

Walter Olson — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 10:52:57 +0000

As the East Texas jury was set to begin deliberations. Per Joe Mullin’s must-read coverage at IP Law and Business, Rick Frenkel’s lawyer-critical blog is now entirely closed down even to private readers except as an archive for the use of lawyers in the related litigation. More: Mullin, Sept. 18 (Frenkel “wouldn’t have the financial resources to defend himself” had his employer Cisco not covered his legal costs), Sept. 21 (“You don’t wrestle with a snake, you cut its head off,” said plaintiff T. John (“Johnny”) Ward, Jr. “We shut the blog down, is what we did.”)

Tags: bloggers and the law, Eastern District of Texas, Patent Troll Tracker, watch what you say about lawyers

Troll Tracker blog suit settles is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

“Patent reformer becomes troll, sues defunct OSS company”

Walter Olson — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 14:48:45 +0000

And did a small defendant wind up being added to the list of those sued in an intellectual-property suit just in order to secure venue in the plaintiff-beloved Eastern District of Texas? [Ars Technica]

Tags: Eastern District of Texas, patent trolls

“Patent reformer becomes troll, sues defunct OSS company” is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

“Texas Judge Bans Microsoft From Selling Word in the U.S.”

Walter Olson — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 13:06:11 +0000

The Eastern District of Texas strikes again. [DailyTech, Concurring Opinions, Legal BlogWatch, WSJ Law Blog, earlier]

Tags: Eastern District of Texas, Microsoft, patent litigation

“Texas Judge Bans Microsoft From Selling Word in the U.S.” is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

July 21 roundup

Walter Olson — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 04:05:18 +0000

“Plaintiffs’ Attorneys to Get $800,000 in Preliminary Settlement, Class Members Receive Zero” [Calif. Civil Justice covering Bluetooth settlement in which Ted was objector; earlier here and here]
“Lawyer Jailed for Contempt Is Freed After 14 Years” [Lowering the Bar, earlier]
Money makes the signals go ’round: another probe of red-light cameras yields few surprises [Chicago Tribune, Chicago Bungalow, Bainbridge on Washington, D.C.]
Previously little-known company surfaces in E.D. Tex. to claim Apple, many other companies violate its patent for touchpads [AppleInsider via @JohnLobert]
Child endangerment saga of mom who left kids at Montana mall is now a national story [ABC News; earlier post with many comments; Free Range Kids and more]
Meet Obama Administration “special adviser on ‘green’ jobs” Van Jones ["Dunphy", McCarthy at NRO "Corner"]
Irrationality of furloughs at University of Wisconsin should provide yet another ground to question New Deal-era Fair Labor Standards Act [Coyote]
Australia’s internet blacklist is so secret you can’t even find out what sites are on it [Popehat - language] Oz to block online video games unsuitable for those under 15 [BoingBoing]

Tags: Apple, Australia, class action settlements, contempt, Eastern District of Texas, online speech, patent litigation, red light cameras, wage and hour suits

July 21 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

A steer named Tivo

Walter Olson — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 12:58:43 +0000

More from notorious patent venue E.D. Tex.: litigants and lawyers are reaching out to buy sponsorships and other sources of presumed goodwill with the heavily rural jury pool, thus resulting in “Samsung Stagecoach Days” and the purchase of prize cows by faraway patent holders. [Elinson/The Recorder, Frankel/AmLaw]

Tags: Eastern District of Texas, forum shopping

A steer named Tivo is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system