West Texas Filings Dip as Cases Flow Away from Judge Albright

In late April, Western District of Texas Judge Alan D. Albright confirmed that he will step down from the federal bench this August to return to private practice. Since then, he has entered several orders “vacating all hearings, pretrial conferences, and trial dates” in dozens of patent cases, due to the “potential for future conflicts”. The last case assignment to Judge Albright was dated April 17, with news of his retirement from the bench landing in the middle of the next week. A quick comparison of the patent case filing volumes in the month since to the month prior seems to confirm the conventional expectation of the effect of his announced departure—and the inevitable patent case reassignment turbulence seems well underway.