A second-hand comment on Marshall Texas
Disclaimer: I am not a Patent Attorney, nor even an ordinary attorney - not even a lowlife ambulance chaser. ("Attention. Recent research has indicated that some deaths may have occurred from the use of 3 button mice. If you or your loved ones have ever used a 3 button mouse, please call 1-800-iam-rich").
As a matter of fact, I do my best to stay out of courthouses everywhere.
But I live just over the line from the jury pool for the Rocket Docket Patent court of Marshall Texas. But as it turn out, the IT manager of a local school district (who is both a friend and my best customer -alas, mostly with WinDel supported by a few RH or Debian servers) got called for the pool of that court and on a gen-u-wine patent case.
Although she has been heavy in PCs for years, she knew nothing about the patent meltdown in the US. So she reported as just another ordinary potential jurist. She was back the next day, having been rejected. According to her, anyone with the slightest knowledge of anything technical was cut. In other words, they want people who won't have a clue about anything on the subject of the suit and who can be convinced to agree with the "Inventor" of "Double clicking on an Icon" and find against all the evil people who are double mouse clicking without paying.
As an aside, I find that many of the articles about the patent courts are not accurate in saying that the problem is greater in Marshall. It appears that the above problem is about the same in all patent cases. Marshall is different in that that particular judge requires the petitioners to move along at a very rapid pace, so that far more suits flow through that court over the same length of time than most others.
Of course, a plaintiff at a court in Silicon Valley would probably have a much lower chance of getting a "pure" jury pool than is possible here in "Hickville, Texas". Heck, a lot of people around here still use Windows! 'Nuff said'.
Konan
