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The Dallas Morning News

Patent cases can have all the drama of sports: underdogs taking down big companies, behemoth firms knocking legal helmets and last-minute reversals of fortune that leave the winners in doubt.

The largest jury verdict in a patent case was won with the help of a Dallas attorney, and several significant recent cases have strong Dallas connections.

The cases require a special combination of attorneys who understand complex industries such as the medical, software and engineering fields as well as sharp trial lawyers who can walk juries through the thicket of information and ideas surrounding patents. They can be expensive and time-consuming, which means good billables for firms.

'Rocket docket'

The Eastern District, which includes Collin County and much of eastern Texas, has won a reputation as extremely plaintiff-friendly and a preferred venue to get patent claims through quickly.

Just getting a case into the Eastern District - known by some as the "rocket docket" because its comparative lack of criminal cases lets judges move civil patent cases swiftly - has prompted some companies to settle quickly.

Nguyen says the district's reputation as friendly to patent plaintiffs is widespread; whenever it's mentioned at law conferences around the country, she hears the same reaction.

"There's always chuckling," she said. "They might just be laughing at Texas, but the district's reputation isn't deserved."

Other court watchers agree that the district's plaintiff-friendly reputation may be overdone.

"Defendants can win over there because the judges are very good," said Richard Sayles of Sayles Werbner in Dallas. In June, Sayles won the largest patent verdict to date of $1.67 billion in an infringement case that pitted his client, Pennsylvania-based Centocor Ortho Biotech Inc., against giant Abbott Laboratories.

Patent Attorney Richard "Dick" Sayles in Dallas Morning News

"It was portrayed out there as a runaway verdict, but I think if you consider the large numbers involved in the sales of the drug that the verdict makes a lot more sense," Sayles said.

The arthritis drug involved is Abbott's best-seller and accounted for billions in global sales, and the infringed patent was at the heart of its global appeal, he said.

The tricky part of patent suits is the potential for dramatic reversal at appeal; Sayles' record dollar figure could easily be reduced to nothing as the appeal progresses in coming months.

Minute details of how damage claims on patents are argued and phrased can make all the difference in the often sprawling cases.

Oftentimes, entrepreneurs have only a patent as the core of their business and successfully defending it can make them millionaires.

But that potential for riches has spawned a wave of patent trolls - firms or individuals who buy patents with the idea of suing companies for infringement and making them settle. The success of such suits has spurred tort reform advocates who want to make it harder for such cases to get filed.

Over the past two years, the number of cases filed in the district has fallen, in part because of a slowing economy as companies were less willing to spend money on bringing cases.

But key rulings from the federal circuit court on patent cases have also made it harder for companies to put cases in the Eastern District and to bring patent cases overall.

Though 371 cases were filed in the district in 2007, 257 were filed in 2009, according to court records.

Some expect filings to continue to decline.

"I do think there will be fewer filings in the Eastern District - it's just a question of what degree of decline," Sayles said.

Other areas of intellectual property law - trademark enforcement, for example - remain steady work in the region, and firms are still looking to add to their IP practice groups.

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