James Rodney Gilstrap
| James Rodney Gilstrap | |
|---|---|
| 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 |
James Rodney Gilstrap 1957 (age 59–60) Pensacola, Florida |
| Spouse(s) | Sherry Sullivan |
| Education |
Baylor University B.A. Baylor Law School J.D. |
James Rodney Gilstrap (born 1957) (also known as J. Rodney Gilstrap or Rodney Gilstrap) is a 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 country and is often referred to by various sources as the country's single "busiest patent judge."
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. As an undergraduate he was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa. He also earned a Juris Doctor from Baylor Law School in 1981, where he was associate editor of the Baylor Law Review where he published the article Video Recorders: Copyright Infringement, 33 Baylor Law Review 695 (1981). He later served as president of the Baylor Law Alumni Association.
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 1981-1984. He later became a founding Partner of Smith & Gilstrap in Marshall from 1984-1989, where his practice covered oil and gas, real estate, probate law and occasionally patent cases. 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. Gilstrap served as a Harrison County Judge from 1989 to 2002. Judge 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. In 2004, Judge 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.
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