Welcome to Waco! The impact of judge shopping on litigation
研究了美国德州西区韦科分庭任命一位前专利诉讼律师为唯一地区法官后，专利诉讼中法官挑选行为的影响，发现原告能确定选择亲专利权人的法官导致案件数量增加，尤其是非实施实体提起的案件。
Abstract We analyze the effect of judge shopping in patent litigation following the appointment of a former patent litigator as the sole district judge assigned to the Waco Division of the US District Court for the Western District of Texas (WDTX). We find that patent enforcers’ ability to select, with certainty, a judge widely regarded as patentee-friendly increased the number of cases filed, especially by non-practicing entities. We show that the increase in litigation was driven by both an influx of cases that would not have been filed but for the judge’s appointment and a geographic reallocation of cases that would have been filed regardless. Overall, judge shopping in the WDTX induced over a 33-month period an increase of around 460 patent cases that otherwise would not have been filed..