After Judge Alan Albright was confirmed to the Western District of Texas bench in Waco in 2018, the WDTX bench became a magnet for patent cases. Filing in Waco all but guaranteed a patent case would be assigned to Judge Albright, because Waco had only one judge. By 2021, Waco was one of the hot venues for U.S. patent cases, and firms were rushing to open offices in Waco, at least in part to capitalize on the overwhelming number of new patent cases being filed there.