Brit Featherston Appointed Acting U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Texas

The 2017 Biennial Criminal Bench Bar Conference for the Eastern District of Texas will be held on Thursday, March 9 and Friday, March 10, 2017 at The Center for American and International Law (CAIL), 5201 Democracy Drive, Plano, Texas.
For more information, including registration, click here.
G.O. 17-03 was recently issued by Judge Clark, and provides the standard conditions of supervision for persons placed on probation or supervised release. 17-03
I will be live on IPO Chat Channel Wednesday, 1 February, at 1:00pm Central for a panel discussion Waiting for Heartland: Venue Tactics Until the U.S. Supreme Court Decision with Jeffrey Bragalone of Bragalone Conroy PC and Colette Reiner Mayer of Morrison & Foerster LLP. The panel is hosted and produced by Pamela Sherrid,
and I am looking forward to an interesting discussion. Jeff, Colette, Pamela and I have been collaborating on the slides, and the current over\under on “meme” slides is 4, so I think viewers will enjoy the show!
For more information and to register, go here.
Tomorrow is bimonthly status conference day in Marshall, so I’m spending the day making sure I’m ready for my cases. One thing I do to prepare is to review the dates assigned at the last set of conferences, so I have attached that list with Markman and trial dates so you can see what the typical time to trial and Markman is currently. As the list shows
I had the privilege this afternoon of presenting the 2017 Luke Soules award for professionalism and service to the legal profession to Jim Branton of San Antonio on behalf of the Litigation Section of the State Bar. Jim is a former State Bar president who has been a prominent leader in the bar, scholar (I trained using his series of Texas Trial Law books), and outstanding trial lawyer. It was great seeing him and having the opportunity to recognize him again for all his contributions to the profession. You hear the expression “lions of the trial bar” all the time. This is who the expression is referring to.
Last January Judge Gilstrap entered the 285 shot heard round the world when he assessed almost $400,000 in fees against Plaintiff eDekka. Yesterday the shot was even bigger when he assessed $355,000 in fees under 285 against a patent plaintiff and the real party in interest behind that plaintiff, Brian Yates, as well as an additional $152,000 against Mr. Yates individually, as reflected in the attached order, for a total award against that individual of over half a million dollars. Which, the order was clear, was on top of the amounts Yates had paid 17 of the 18 defendants in the case not to continue with 285 motions. But the important part of the order wasn’t the amount, but the Court’s decision to construe Section 285 as allowing awards against persons who were not even parties to the case in some circumstances. And key to that finding was Judge Gilstrap’s decision, made sua sponte, to add that real party, which he found had created a series of shell corporations to avoid potential 285 liability if the case “went south” as he put it, as a party to the case so that due process concerns were satisfied. The story of the case is a sorry one, as the order reflects. While
As I mentioned the other day, the last session of the Texas Legislature in 2015 saw adoption of subchapter L “Bad Faith Claims of Patent Infringement” to the section of the Texas Business & Commerce Code dealing with deceptive trade practices. The new section, codified at Tex. Bus. & Com. Code Ann. §§ 17.951-17.955, deals with demand letters asserting patent infringement and prohibits
Happy to have been interviewed for the State Bar of Texas IP Law Section’s Tipsheet this month by Rich Beem on the subject of patent litigation in East Texas. Also on tap is a report from section chair Hope Shimabuku, who moonlights as director of the Texas Regional PTO office in Dallas, as well as a profile of member George Jordan, who chairs the IP Law Section’s Patent Committee as well as serving as Secretary and Vice Chair Nominee for the American Bar Association’s Section of Intellectual Property Law.
And finally, Craig Stone and Maryann Zaki have an entertaining article on the recent high-stakes brand battle between two Houston law schools – South Texas College of Law (STCL) and the University of Houston Law Center (UHLC) over STCL’s recent announcement that it would be changing its name to “Houston College of Law.”
Information on the Section can be found at their website, www.texasbariplaw.org/
Judge Clark has issued G.O. 17-02, appointing members of the CJA Panel, superseding G.O. 16-02. There are panels for each division, with an “A” panel, a “B” panel, and “appeals only” members. 17-02