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Tuesday, April 21, 2015

How east Texas became the epicenter for 'patent troll' lawsuits

Of the 4,070 patent lawsuits filed in the USA in 2012, 3,000 of them were of the trolling kind. East Texas seems to be a particular popular spot for these types of cases. Apple alone has been sued 84 times in area patent courts in the last six years, Chron.com reported in March.

A quarter of all patent cases are filed in the East Texas city of Marshall, according to Last Week Tonight. But this is not a community of regular Einsteins.

Patent holders have a higher winning percentage here than in other parts of the country (Most cases are settled out of court since it costs millions of dollars to defend a patent suit). The number of patent infringement cases in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas has skyrocketed since 2002.

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