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Judge Rodney Gilstrap Sees A Quarter Of The Nation's Patent Cases (vice.com)
derekmead quotes a report from Motherboard: Since taking the bench in 2011 -- moving literally across the street from his law office into the district courthouse -- Judge Rodney Gilstrap has become one of the most influential patent litigation judges in the country. In 2015, there were 5,819 new patent cases filed in the US; 1,686 of those ended up in front of Judge Gilstrap. That's more than a quarter of all cases in the country; twice as many as the next most active patent judge. This busy patent docket didn't blossom overnight, and it's not some strange coincidence. Due to some unique rules around intellectual property filings, patent holders can often file their lawsuits at any district court in the country, even if neither the plaintiff nor the defendant is based there. By introducing a list of standing court orders and local regulations, the Eastern District of Texas (and, in particular, Gilstrap's division of Marshall) has become the court of choice for many plaintiffs, especially non-practicing entities, often referred to as patent trolls.
This isn't a local or state court, it's a Federal District Court (the lowest level of Federal court). Even though it's referred to as the "Eastern District of Texas," it's a Federal court. It's located IN Texas, but it's not a Texas court.
The only way of becoming an appointed judge is by being a lower judge which is elected.
This is completely and totally untrue. Only a minority of Federal judges (none of whom are elected) were ever state or local judges prior to appointment to the Federal bench, and of those only about half were judges in courts where the judges are elected.