This report, produced by the Court, is available on the Court's website. I’d encourage our readers to peruse the full report, but we highlight a few interesting statistics and announcements below.
IP Cases Continue to Dominate the Docket
In 2022, there was an increase in jury trials to 19 in the District of Delaware. Patent/IP cases accounted for 44% of all civil filings in the last 7 years and 43% in 2022 alone.
Nationally, patent filings decreased from 4,037 filings to 3,854. In the District of Delaware in 2022, 685 patent cases were filed, a 23.04 percent decrease from the previous year of 890. Delaware is second in the nation, after the Western District of Texas, for most patent case filings.
. . .
In 2022 Delaware continued to hold the top position nationally for the number of patent cases filed per authorized judgeship of 171 cases.
Handling the Case Load
As of December 31, 2022, the District’s weighted case filings measured 775 per judgeship, the fourth highest in the nation! Magistrate Judge Thynge recently retired, and Judge Andrews will soon take senior status at the end of December 2023. Judge Williams and Magistrate Judge Hatcher have both been welcomed onto the Court recently.
To assist with the heavy caseload, D. Del. now has 24 Visiting Judges from various courts—although only some of them handle patent cases:
- Honorable Joseph F. Bataillon, Senior Judge, District of Nebraska
- Honorable Stephanos Bibas, Third Circuit Court of Appeals
- Honorable William C. Bryson, Senior Judge, Federal Circuit Court of Appeals
- Honorable Renee M. Bumb, District of New Jersey
- Honorable Timothy Belcher Dyk, Federal Circuit Court of Appeals
- Honorable Mitchell S. Goldberg, Eastern District of Pennsylvania
- Honorable Todd M. Hughes, Federal Circuit Court of Appeals
- Honorable Kent A. Jordan, Third Circuit Court of Appeals
- Honorable Mark A. Kearney, Eastern District of Pennsylvania
- Honorable Matthew F. Kennelly, Senior Judge, Northern District of Illinois
- Honorable Jon P. McCalla, Senior Judge, Western District of Tennessee
- Honorable Gerald A. McHugh, Eastern District of Pennsylvania
- Honorable Gerald J. Pappert, Eastern District of Pennsylvania
- Honorable Nitza I. Quinones Alejandro, Eastern District of Pennsylvania
- Honorable J. Nicholas Ranjan, Western District of Pennsylvania
- Honorable L. Felipe Restrepo, Third Circuit Court of Appeals
- Honorable Eduardo C. Robreno, Eastern District of Pennsylvania
- Honorable Juan R. Sanchez, Eastern District of Pennsylvania
- Honorable Joel H. Slomsky, Eastern District of Pennsylvania
- Honorable Leonard P. Stark, Federal Circuit Court of Appeals
- Honorable Evan J. Wallach, Senior Judge, Federal Circuit Court of Appeals
- Honorable Freda L. Wolfson, District of New Jersey
- Honorable Joshua D. Wolson, Eastern District of Pennsylvania
Renovations at the Courthouse
Among other updates, the new Clerk of court, Ms. Randall announced several major court space and facilities projects being undertaken by the Court currently and in the near future. A modern new courtroom and chambers (6D) is being built for Magistrate Judge Hall, to be completed by the end of the summer. A new Magistrate Judge chambers will also be built on the 4th floor. And the attorney lounges throughout the courthouse are promised renovations as well!
Community Outreach
Despite their very busy docket, the District Court participates in several community outreach programs. One of those outreach programs is “Judge Chats”, conducted via the National Constitution Center (NCC) in Philadelphia. This program allows students and judges to engage in informative dialogues about judging and the judicial system. We highlight this, because NCC allows attorneys to outreach with students in a similar fashion through NCC Scholar Exchanges.
Read the Full Report!
There are many more announcements, data summaries, and graphs. The above is just a teaser, so go check out the full report itself.
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