[2] Court for the District is held at Beaumont, Lufkin, Marshall, Plano, Sherman, Texarkana, and Tyler.

Lufkin Division comprises the following counties: Angelina, Houston, Nacogdoches, Polk, Sabine, San Augustine, Shelby, Trinity, and Tyler.

Sherman Division comprises the following counties: Collin, Cooke, Delta, Denton, Fannin, Grayson, Hopkins, and Lamar.

Tyler Division comprises the following counties: Anderson, Cherokee, Gregg, Henderson, Panola, Rains, Rusk, Smith, Van Zandt, and Wood.

In addition the proximity to larger cities (such as Dallas and Houston), along with a jury pool interested in protecting property rights, may attract patent cases to Marshall, Tyler, and Texarkana.

[7] Between 2004 and 2011 the district presided over TiVo Inc. v. EchoStar Corp., involving the issues of patent infringement and contempt of court.

Judges in this district have been found to grant requests for summary judgment of invalidity at a lower rate than the national average.

The filing of such cases in the Eastern District of Texas dropped after the 2017 Supreme Court decision in TC Heartland LLC v. Kraft Foods Group Brands LLC, which held that for the purpose of venue in patent infringement suits, a domestic corporation "resides" only in its state of incorporation.