West Texas Judge Climbs the Rankings Using Judge Albright’s Playbook

NPE filings in the Western District of Texas dipped dramatically in the wake of rule changes that targeted the patent caseload of District Judge Alan D. Albright. While divisional rules once allowed Judge Albright, a former patent litigator, to attract more patent litigation than any other judge in the country, a July 2022 case assignment order closed that loophole—under which plaintiffs were guaranteed to get Judge Albright by filing in Waco, where he is the only district judge—by providing that Waco’s patent cases are instead to be distributed among a larger group of judges. That order, plus an updated version in May 2024 designed to prevent Judge Albright from getting a disproportionate share of new litigation in existing campaigns, has left his patent docket far slimmer than before: In Q1 2025, he had just 2% of the nation’s patent cases, putting him in fourth place.

However, another West Texas judge appears to have taken steps to make his own courtroom an attractive destination for patent cases. Just one week after the July 2022 case assignment order took effect against Judge Albright, Western District of Texas Judge David Counts of the Midland-Odessa Division—also a former patent litigator—adopted a patent standing order based in large part on Judge Albright’s. Significantly, Judge Counts is the only district judge in Midland-Odessa, and since no special case assignment rules presently target his division, plaintiffs have been free to seek out his courtroom.

By all accounts they have done so: Judge Counts has steadily risen in the judge rankings, overtaking Judge Albright in mid-2024 and tying for fifth place last year overall. As of the first quarter of 2025, Judge Counts is now the number-two patent judge in the nation—albeit, at 6%, in a distant second place.

Holding a commanding lead once again was District Judge Rodney Gilstrap, whose seven-year term as East Texas’s chief judge ended on March 1, 2025—passing the torch to Chief Judge Amos L. Mazzant, who was appointed to the bench in 2014 by President Barack Obama.

See RPX’s first-quarter review for more on venue and other key patent litigation trends.