Commentary

Readers interested in the demographics of the western part of the EDTX might be interested in this article in yesterday’s Dallas paper, which notes that by 2050 Collin County is expected to have between 2.4 and 3.5 million residents. For comparison purposes, Dallas County, which includes Dallas, its first ring or suburbs and parts of its second (Plano straddles Dallas and Collin counties) currently has 2.6 million residents. According to the article, much of the county’s growth is driven by businesses moving to the area. “In the last several years, dozens of companies have set up shop in Collin County,” Lloyd Potter, the Texas state demographer and a public policy professor at the University of Texas at San Antonio, was quoted as saying. “Toyota has settled in Plano. Raytheon is in McKinney. The Dallas Cowboys are in Frisco.” https://www.dallasnews.com/life/curious-texas/2019/02/19/just-big-collin-countys-boom-curious-texas-investigates I have some additional metrics that I thought might provide a better take on the economic growth in the are.

Great night last night at the Chamber’s Centennial celebration. It was a treat meeting George Foreman and trading memories of Judge Sam B. Hall, Jr. who he knew well. (We traded impressions, and his is way better than mine). We were so fortunate he was able to come, as we all enjoyed his talk about Marshall, and he was kind of enough to stay afterwards so everyone could get a picture. He lives here, but as he preaches in Houston four days a week and spends most of the time here at his ranch, you don’t see him around town a lot. But for a lot of us, he made the evening very special, and we really appreciate him coming out.

I’ve attached my slides (with notes) on the history of Chambers of Commerce from Mesopotamia to the present in case any readers want to impress their local business community with a detailed knowledge of the maritime needs that created the first one in 1599 in Marseille, as well as the differences between the Boston and Charleston Tea Parties in 1773-74, and the relative merits of rodent control strategies in small towns. The Bingo aspect went okay except that I missed just enough key words during my presentation that no one hit blackout. But we gave prizes to the first ten to Bingo, which make my job half-speaker and half-lookout. The consensus seemed to be that if you liked history, it was okay, and if not, Bingo is always fun. Win/win.

Interestingly, the audience including a former Annapolis grad that knew a little bit about historic sites in ancient Mesopotamia from his deployment in the area in recent years, so we had a nice visit about the effect of recent looting on the sites I was talking about, as well as whether I correctly identified the class of the hypothetical U.S.S. Fire Ant. (You kinda had to be there).

This is Judge Gilstrap’s second patent trial of the year, this time in Tyler.

Time to break out the popcorn – more claims that damages experts’ opinions should be excluded.

While not as exciting as a JMOL ruling, limine/pretrial rulings are still interesting. JMOLs are more thorough, focus on the issues that were actually raised, and contain sufficient context to explain what the issue is and why the motion is being granted or denied. Motions in limine/pretrial rulings, on the other hand, are like watching the two minutes of Star Wars immediately before the rebel spacecraft engage the Death Star. There’s some important information about the case as the rebel pilots prepare for battle, of course, but it’s incomplete and can be misleading about what the key issues really are. Who’s this “Ben” guy, what’s the deal with the Cinnabon lady, and good riddance to Han and the hairy guy.

This picture of my grad school roommate Johnny Hatch with a pile of rattlesnakes at the Texas Capitol yesterday (it was Sweetwater Rattlesnake Roundup so this is actually fairly normal) has nothing to do with this post. I just thought it’d be interesting for you non-Texans. Although, come to think of it, there are those that would put alleged SLAPP and anti-SLAPP suits in the same category as a bag of rattlesnakes. Let me explain why.

I try not to update posts this quickly, but the above new chart from Darryl Towell at Docket Navigator this morning was too good to pass up. Yesterday I provided the 2018 patent filings for Delaware, EDTX, NDCA and CDCA by month as shown below, with the lagniappe of a svelte line showing Delaware’s non-ANDA filings as well. It was a chart only a mother could love. This morning DN sent over a revised chart by quarter, and a couple of trends I didn’t focus on yesterday are now apparent.