Supreme Court Will Hear A Case That Could Finally Shut Down East Texas As The Patent Troll Mecca

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Last year, we wrote about an important patent case concerning the common practice of patent trolls going forum shopping. We've been writing about how patent trolls have been flocking to East Texas for ten years now, and little has changed. In fact, as we noted last year, there's one judge in East Texas, Judge Rodney Gilstrap, who famously handled 20% of all patent cases filed in the country in 2014. One judge. And that's not all the patent cases that come into that court. The towns of Marshall, Texas, and Tyler, Texas, have built a giant industry out of being super friendly to patent trolls. And it's ridiculous. But there's a case that could put an end to it and the Supreme Court has thankfully agreed to hear it. The case is called In Re: TC Heartland, and -- somewhat ironically -- it is not about a case filed in East Texas, but rather in the second favorite patent troll destination: Delaware (which has become more friendly to patent trolls over the last few years -- apparently trying to compete with East Texas for the "business.")

The underlying issue in the case is whether or not a 1990 ruling by the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) in the VE Holding v. Johnson Gas case basically threw open the floodgates on jurisdiction shopping for patent plaintiffs. This ruling was ridiculous on multiple levels, not the least of which was because one of the driving forces in setting up a centralized appeals court (CAFC) to hear all patent cases was to stop jurisdiction shopping that was happening in the patent space, where patent holders were rushing to favorable courts in favorable circuits. And, yes, the end result has been significantly worse forum shopping than anything that existed prior to CAFC's existence. And when CAFC got a chance to review this bad decision in hearing the TC Heartland case earlier this year... it didn't. It left the earlier rule standing.

The good news, of course, is that when the Supreme Court agrees to hear a patent case these days, it almost always means that CAFC is about to get spanked for being ridiculously bad at its main job of properly interpreting patent law. So hopefully things are lining up to see another SCOTUS smackdown of CAFC... and with that smack, an end to East Texas (or any particular jurisdiction) as a patent troll haven.

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Verizon Wants A Yahoo Price Cut After Company Reveals Another, Massive Hack Attack

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Earlier this year Verizon was understandably irritated when it learned (just two days before the public) that Yahoo had failed to disclose a massive hack of the company's systems during the companies' $4.8 billion merger negotiations. Reports suggested that Verizon, who is attempting to pivot from broadband to ads and content, wanted a $1 billion reduction in the asking price and another $1 billion set aside for the inevitable lawsuits. Given its NSA ties, Verizon was likely much less concerned about reports revealing that Yahoo also went out of its way to help the government sniff through subscriber e-mail accounts en masse.

Fast forward to this week, and things just got notably more complicated for both companies. While the first Yahoo hack revealed the personal data of roughly 500,000 Yahoo subscribers, Yahoo just confirmed a second attack by the same party that the company says revealed the personal data of 1 billion Yahoo users. Yahoo says this second attack was only revealed once law enforcement reached out to Yahoo with snippets of the compromised data in hand. But in a website post by Yahoo's chief information security officer Bob Lord, the company effectively admits it still doesn't actually know how the hackers got this information:

"As we previously disclosed in November, law enforcement provided us with data files that a third party claimed was Yahoo user data. We analyzed this data with the assistance of outside forensic experts and found that it appears to be Yahoo user data. Based on further analysis of this data by the forensic experts, we believe an unauthorized third party, in August 2013, stole data associated with more than one billion user accounts. We have not been able to identify the intrusion associated with this theft. We believe this incident is likely distinct from the incident we disclosed on September 22, 2016."

"A legal team led by Verizon General Counsel Craig Silliman is assessing the damage from the breaches and is working toward either killing the deal or renegotiating the Yahoo purchase at a lower price, the person said. One of the major objectives for Verizon is negotiating a separation from any future legal fallout from the breaches. Verizon is seeking to have Yahoo assume any lasting responsibility for the hack damage, the person said."

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