Fenwick litigation partner David Tellekson spoke to the Puget Sound Business Journal about an expected increase in technology-related lawsuits in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, a region that includes Seattle.
One driver is the number of tech companies that are expanding and opening new offices in the Seattle area.
Tellekson told the publication that in order to handle the influx of tech cases, the district needs to fill vacant seats that have opened up as key judges have taken senior status and reduced their caseloads.
“As I understand it, the (Trump) administration is in no hurry to fill these vacancies and is standing in the way of candidates that our senators are putting up. One local judge commented on this in open court, and said that the court is suffering under the current backload,” Tellekson said.
The Puget Sound Business Journal reported that patent case filings had increased 108 percent in the Western District in 2017 compared to the year before and mentioned that a pair of court rulings were driving cases to Seattle—the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in TC Heartland and the Federal Circuit’s In Re: Cray Inc. ruling restricting where patent owners can file their lawsuits.
In In Re: Cray Inc., Cray is represented by Fenwick’s Tellekson, along with partners Bryan Kohm and Melanie Mayer, and associates Jonathan McMichael, Yixin Zhang and Reilly Stoler.
The full article is available through the Puget Sound Business Journal (subscription required).