Sadly, today's post will be an update to one of my more popular posts. So there will be no stories of childhood pets, and scarcely any amusing bon mots. Instead, we're sticking to the facts today and asking in 2024 C.E. who do you want deciding your 101 motion?
The rules from last time have been modified slightly. I once again took the last 10 opinions from each of our current active Article III judges as the data set (for Judge Hall, this required including some R&Rs from her time as a magistrate). This includes Rule 12 motions and motions for summary judgment (generally less common) but does not include post-trial motions. To get some more robust data this time, I measured the percentage of the patents at issue in the motion that were invalidated, rather than merely the percentage of motions which were granted in part.
And the results are:
- Judge Connolly - 71% of patents invalidated (22/31)
- Judge Hall - 0% of patents invalidated (0/21)
- Judge Noreika - 3% of patents invalidated (1/29)
- Judge Williams - 79% of patents invalidated (22/28)
Naturally there's only so much that can be drawn from a data set of this size -- especially given that I have no obvious means of controlling for the relative strength of the patents at issue. But it's interesting to see such a wide spread.
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