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EFF Asks Appeals Court To "Shut Down the Eastern District of Texas" (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader writes: The Electronic Frontier Foundation and Public Knowledge have asked a federal appeals court to make big changes to the rules governing venue in patent cases. The two public interest groups are seeking to file an amicus brief (PDF) which attacks the Eastern District of Texas as being one of the "most notorious situations of forum shopping in recent history." This district has made quite a few appearances on Slashdot; this is one of my favorites.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-po...
With a few seconds editing, this could have been in the summary.
The issue here is the federal US District Courts. In the US, federal judges are appointed for life by the president, with the advice and consent of the Senate. The issue here is not campaign contributions. Federal judges don't have to stand for reelection. Not to say that there aren't other problems at work, but reelection campaigns and campaign contributions are not the problem.
Full text (PDF) of the Amicus Brief is worth reading and not that long. Excerpts "The Eastern District has adopted certain procedural rules that benefit patent owners—particularly those with weak patents and no products—to the detriment of small innovators and those accused of infringement. These rules drive up costs to defendants and work to increase settlement pressure untethered to the merits of a particular claim for patent infringement." and "These rules, although facially neutral, give significant advantages to patent owners with minimal assets, dubious patents or infringement claims, or a goal of extracting undeserved settlements."