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American judge (born 1957) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
James Rodney Gilstrap (born May 1, 1957) is the chief United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. He is notable for presiding over more than one quarter of all patent infringement cases filed in the nation and is often referred to by various sources as the country's single "busiest patent judge."[1][2]
J. Rodney Gilstrap | |
|---|---|
Gilstrap in 2019 | |
| Chief Judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas | |
| Assumed office March 1, 2018 | |
| Preceded by | Ron Clark |
| Judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas | |
| Assumed office December 6, 2011 | |
| Appointed by | Barack Obama |
| Preceded by | Thad Heartfield |
| Personal details | |
| Born | May 1, 1957 Pensacola, Florida, U.S. |
| Education | Baylor University (BA, JD) |
Gilstrap was born in Pensacola, Florida. He is an Eagle Scout. He received a Bachelor of Arts from Baylor University in 1978, where he graduated magna cum laude.[3] As an undergraduate he was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa. He also earned a Juris Doctor from Baylor Law School in 1981,[4] where he was associate editor of the Baylor Law Review. While on the review, he published the article Video Recorders: Copyright Infringement, 33 Baylor Law Review 695 (1981).[5] Gilstrap later served as president of the Baylor Law Alumni Association.[3][6]
After graduation from law school, Gilstrap entered private practice in the town of Marshall, Texas as an Associate with the firm of Abney, Baldwin & Searcy from 1981 to 1984.[7][6] He later became a founding Partner of Smith & Gilstrap in Marshall from 1984 to 1989, where his practice covered oil and gas, real estate, probate law and occasionally patent cases.[7][8] Among the patent cases Gilstrap worked on while at Smith & Gilstrap included defending Capital One Financial Corporation in a patent suit brought by LML Patent Corporation alleging patent infringement by several banks on patents covering payment services and the representation of a company called Bluestone Innovations Texas in a patent infringement suit brought against a number of foreign companies involving Light-emitting diodes (or LED) technology.[9] Gilstrap served as a Harrison County Judge from 1989 to 2002.[10] Gilstrap also served 16 years on the Courthouse Preservation Council in Marshall, and also served as the Chair of the Unauthorized Practice of Law Committee with the State Bar of Texas.[10] In 2004, Gilstrap co-authored an article with Leland de la Garza which appeared in the Texas Bar Journal: UPL: Unlicensed, Unwanted and Unwelcome 67 Texas Bar Journal 798 (2004). While and after serving as a Harrison County Judge, Gilstrap was practicing at Smith & Gilstrap until he became appointed to the federal bench in 2011.[6]
On May 19, 2011, President Barack Obama nominated Gilstrap to a seat on United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas.[4][7] Gilstrap was rated as Unanimously Qualified by the American Bar Association and had a hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee on July 28, 2011.[11] On September 15, 2011, the Senate Judiciary Committee reported his nomination to the Senate floor by voice vote. The Senate confirmed his nomination by voice vote on December 5, 2011.[12] He received his commission on December 6, 2011.[6] He became the chief judge on March 1, 2018, after Ron Clark assumed senior status.[13]
According to Lex Machina and other sources, Gilstrap is the United States district judge that hears the most patent cases in the country and has been referred to by many sources as the nation's single "busiest patent judge".[1][2] In 2016, for example, 1,119 cases were brought before Gilstrap, who saw more new cases than the next 10 highest ranking judges – 2016 was also the fourth year in a row where Gilstrap had more patent cases than any other federal judge.[14] In 2015, over 28% of the nation's patent cases were filed before him.[1] Gilstrap and United States Magistrate Judge Roy S. Payne, who are the only two judges based out of the Marshall division of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, also have the most patent cases filed before them out of the predominant share of the nation's patent cases that are filed in the Eastern District of Texas.[1][15][16][17] In 2023–24, Chief Judge Gilstrap regained the title of top patent judge with the most patent cases filed before him.[18][19]
From 2014 to 2015, Gilstrap was ranked first amongst all federal judges (either United States district judge or United States magistrate judge) with the most patent cases filed before him.[20] According to Docket Navigator, in 2015 Gilstrap was also ranked first as to the single federal judge having to preside over the highest number of filed cases, the highest number of litigants, and the highest number of accusations.[21] Also according to Docket Navigator, Gilstrap is the top ranked (#1) most active federal judge (either district or magistrate judge) by number of parties, number of orders and by number of cases from the years of 2014 to 2008 (even though he came on the bench in 2011) for patent litigation.[22]
October 2021 reporting by The Wall Street Journal revealed that since 2011, Gilstrap had presided over 138 cases in which a familial financial conflicts of interest allegedly required his recusal.[40] The paper's investigation revealed he held the national record for number of cases in which a federal judge did not recuse himself owing to an alleged familial financial conflict of interest.[41] However, the investigation also noted that Gilstrap had not taken any action (and certainly not any biased action) because virtually all of the cases at issue settled by agreement of the parties, prior to the defendant filing an answer and prior to the Court making any ruling on the merits.[42] Notably, Gilstrap did not have a direct financial conflict in any of the cases—instead, the alleged conflict stemmed from the fact that Gilstrap's spouse was the beneficiary of a third-party trust which neither Gilstrap nor his spouse controlled, which had invested in portfolios that included certain stocks.[42] For the avoidance of even any appearance of a conflict, the trust promptly divested the stocks at issue immediately after the alleged conflicts came to light.[42] The paper's investigation does not identify any conflict following the divestiture.[42]
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