Examining the “Rocket Docket”
Products Liability deputy practice group leader and Richmond partner Dabney Carr and Richmond partner Robert Angle had their article “Litigating Patent Infringement Cases in the ‘Rocket Docket’ of the Eastern District of Virginia” published in the June 2010 issue of the Intellectual Property & Technology Law Journal.
The unwaveringly speedy docket of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia (EDVA) has made it a popular forum for litigating patent infringement cases, particularly as the dockets of other patent-friendly venues, such as the Eastern District of Texas, have slowed. Although the average of just nine months from filing to trial in civil cases is relatively uniform throughout the EDVA, the three divisions of the EDVA operate quite differently from each other, resulting in idiosyncrasies that create traps for the unwary.
Carr and Angle’s article attempts to identify those traps and to provide guidance on the common pitfalls of patent litigation in the EDVA.