New House Bill Allows Judges to Defer Patent Cases

The House of Representatives on Monday unanimously passed a proposal to allow certain judges to defer patent cases to their more experienced colleagues. Introduced last year by Reps. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) and Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), the proposal aims to improve the time that patent cases are litigated, raise the level of expertise in patent cases, and provide for businesses to spend more time inventing and less time litigating.

According to the bill, the Director of the Administrative Office of the United States Courts has six months to select at least five US District Courts within three judicial districts for the proposed pilot program. In the selected District Courts, judges will have the opportunity to defer a patent case to another judge who has opted in on patent cases. If a patent case has been assigned to a judge who has deferred, then the case will be randomly reassigned to a judge who has opted in. The random reassigning is to cut down on "forum shopping." The Software Business Alliance, whose members include Apple, Cisco, Microsoft, and others, quickly hailed the bill as one that could lead to a slowdown in costly litigation.