James Rodney Gilstrap, U.S. district judge for the Eastern District of Texas, Marshall. Courtesy photo

An inventor group has struck out on its plea to U.S. District Chief Judge Rodney Gilstrap of the Eastern District of Texas to shut down patent validity trials at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

But the group may have effectively produced an amicus filing from Gilstrap for the PTO in its battle with big tech companies over how the PTO conducts those trials.