Update: Judicial Conference Approves Rules Change to Raise Pleading Requirements

The Judicial Conference has voted to approve the rules change I described in my last post.

This is means that, assuming the Supreme Court approves the changes (which it almost certainly will) and Congress doesn’t pass legislation to block the changes (which it almost certainly won’t), as of December 1, 2015, the pleading requirements in patent cases will require the same detail as any other civil case. I’d expect another flood of trollAn entity in the business of being infringed — by analogy to the mythological troll that exacted payments from the unwary.  Cf. NPE, PAE, PME.  See Reitzig and Henkel, Patent Trolls, the Sustainability of ‘Locking-in-to-Extort’ Strategies, and Implications for Innovating Firms. suits to be filed in November of next year, if history is any guide.