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Sarah Guske | Patent venue challenges: What discovery can you expect in light of expanded remote work?
Patent venue challenges often turn on a company's operations within a particular venue. As companies permit and even encourage remote work, this venue analysis may be changing. And with remote work growing in the Austin area, what can you anticipate happening in the Western District of Texas?
More on Sarah Guske.
SPEAKERS
Sarah Guske (Baker Botts), Wayne Stacy
Wayne Stacy 00:00
Welcome, everyone, to Berkeley Center for Law and Technology's Expert Series Podcast, where the focus is on important legal issues impacting technology companies and individual innovators. I'm Wayne Stacy, the Executive Director for BCLT. And your host today. With me, we have a partner from the law firm of Baker Botts, Sarah Gusky. Sara has been litigating for many, many years, we'll just say leave it a t that. But she's one of the nation's leading and most recognized patent litigation experts. She's also been an adjunct professor teaching IP law and patent litigation at several universities around the country. So welcome, Sarah.
Sarah Guske 00:46
Thank you, and thank you for implying that I'm old. Well,
Wayne Stacy 00:52
we let's say we're roughly the same age. So whatever you are, I am too . So today's topic is a is an old one that unfortunately keeps coming up and keeps requiring more and more attention. And that is venue for patent litigations. But today, we're going to look at it from a slightly different perspective, one that involves some of today's issues around the pandemic, remote working, and something very close to the Bay Area is the movement of Bay Area tech employees to other markets, and particularly to the Austin market. So with that in mind, you know, Sarah, why? Why does venue and movement of employees to the Austin market matter to anyone?
Sarah Guske 01:42
Well, it's a little bit to quote, Yogi Berra, deja vu all over again, it's a lot of what we were seeing back in the early 2000s with respect to the Eastern District. But today in 2021, we now have the Western District of Texas, which has become the front runner in terms of patent or patent venues for patent litigations. And where does Austin sit? Well, it's right in the Western District of Texas. So as as employees and companies migrate that direction, they're putting themselves in the crosshairs, so to speak.
Wayne Stacy 02:25
Well, as I study what's going on in the Western District of Texas, it's not really the Western District of Texas that has got companies scared these days. It's one particular division in the Western District of Texas, Waco, and I understand judge Albright there in Waco, in just a few short years on the bench has now amassed about 20%, of the nation's patent litigation in his courts. Is that roughly what you're hearing?
Sarah Guske 02:57
That's right. And as you said, a very short period of time he has attracted and outpaced his competitors, if you want to call them that, in attracting those patent lawsuits, and the growth is sort of a hockey stick, and it just keeps on going.
Wayne Stacy 03:19
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By Kelly TorresPatent venue challenges often turn on a company's operations within a particular venue. As companies permit and even encourage remote work, this venue analysis may be changing. And with remote work growing in the Austin area, what can you anticipate happening in the Western District of Texas?
More on Sarah Guske.
SPEAKERS
Sarah Guske (Baker Botts), Wayne Stacy
Wayne Stacy 00:00
Welcome, everyone, to Berkeley Center for Law and Technology's Expert Series Podcast, where the focus is on important legal issues impacting technology companies and individual innovators. I'm Wayne Stacy, the Executive Director for BCLT. And your host today. With me, we have a partner from the law firm of Baker Botts, Sarah Gusky. Sara has been litigating for many, many years, we'll just say leave it a t that. But she's one of the nation's leading and most recognized patent litigation experts. She's also been an adjunct professor teaching IP law and patent litigation at several universities around the country. So welcome, Sarah.
Sarah Guske 00:46
Thank you, and thank you for implying that I'm old. Well,
Wayne Stacy 00:52
we let's say we're roughly the same age. So whatever you are, I am too . So today's topic is a is an old one that unfortunately keeps coming up and keeps requiring more and more attention. And that is venue for patent litigations. But today, we're going to look at it from a slightly different perspective, one that involves some of today's issues around the pandemic, remote working, and something very close to the Bay Area is the movement of Bay Area tech employees to other markets, and particularly to the Austin market. So with that in mind, you know, Sarah, why? Why does venue and movement of employees to the Austin market matter to anyone?
Sarah Guske 01:42
Well, it's a little bit to quote, Yogi Berra, deja vu all over again, it's a lot of what we were seeing back in the early 2000s with respect to the Eastern District. But today in 2021, we now have the Western District of Texas, which has become the front runner in terms of patent or patent venues for patent litigations. And where does Austin sit? Well, it's right in the Western District of Texas. So as as employees and companies migrate that direction, they're putting themselves in the crosshairs, so to speak.
Wayne Stacy 02:25
Well, as I study what's going on in the Western District of Texas, it's not really the Western District of Texas that has got companies scared these days. It's one particular division in the Western District of Texas, Waco, and I understand judge Albright there in Waco, in just a few short years on the bench has now amassed about 20%, of the nation's patent litigation in his courts. Is that roughly what you're hearing?
Sarah Guske 02:57
That's right. And as you said, a very short period of time he has attracted and outpaced his competitors, if you want to call them that, in attracting those patent lawsuits, and the growth is sort of a hockey stick, and it just keeps on going.
Wayne Stacy 03:19