The most prolific patent troll of last year, eDekka LLC, has had its patent wiped out. The ruling (PDF) will shut down 168 lawsuits that eDekka filed based on US Patent No. 6,266,674, according to Texas Lawyer, which first reported the ruling.

The ruling comes from a surprising source: US District Judge Rodney Gilstrap, the East Texas judge who has been criticized for making life extra-difficult for patent defendants. Gilstrap, who hears more patent cases than any other US judge, will eliminate about 10 percent of his entire patent docket by wiping out the eDekka cases.

Further Reading Why patent trolls go to East Texas, explained

Gilstrap found that the patent claims "the abstract idea of storing and labeling information" and describes "routine tasks that could be performed by a human." eDekka said its patent claims to "improve the functioning of technology," but Gilstrap ruled the claimed improvements simply weren't present. None of the eDekka claims met the standard for patenting, Gilstrap found.

The judge also invited the defendants to submit a joint brief as to why they should get attorneys' fees. Just the invite is a sign of changing times: in his four years on the bench, Gilstrap has never granted attorneys' fees to a defendant in a patent case, according to Texas Lawyer. It became easier to get such fees after the Supreme Court's Octane Fitness decision last year.

The decision came in a lawsuit against 3balls.com, a website that sells used golf clubs and discounted golf equipment. The complaint (PDF) against 3balls was filed in April. It's fairly vague about just what 3balls is doing to violate the patent, stating simply that 3balls "owns, uses, operates, advertises, controls, sells, and otherwise provides methods, apparatus, and/or systems that infringe the ‘674 patent."

Serial plaintiff

eDekka filed more than 100 lawsuits last year alone, making it the top patent troll in terms of number of lawsuits. Most of its targets, like 3balls, are retailers doing straightforward sales online. Other defendants included Fab, Harry & David, Dress Barn, the NFL, Etsy, and Estee Lauder.

The mysterious shell company was one of a few entities that drove last year to an all-time high in terms of patent lawsuits filed. It has scored a large number of fast settlements with big companies, which suggests the company's strategy is to ask for "low" settlement amounts with minimal effort.

The company filed 87 of those lawsuits in a single week in April due to a rumored deadline that a patent reform bill would tighten up all the filing rules for all complaints filed after April 24. In some versions, reformed rules would have forced trolls like eDekka to actually explain how their targets infringe their patents. However, that's not currently a requirement, and patent reform still hasn't passed.

eDekka appears to be a creation of Austin Hansley, the Texas lawyer who represents it. Its style of litigation is identical to the #2 and #3 most prolific patent trolls of 2014, who are also represented by Hansley. Hansley didn't respond to a request for comment from Ars about the eDekka order.

The eDekka patent was originally invented by Donald Hejna, a Bay Area entrepreneur and inventor whose company, Enounce, previously sued Apple for infringing a patent related to variable-speed video playback. Enounce claimed it was the first to create technology allowing users to "speed up or slow down the playback rate" of Adobe Flash videos without sound problems.

The '674 patent was filed in 1992, and it was granted to Hejna in 2001. Under prevailing patent law in 1992, the patent would have survived 17 years from its issue date, meaning it would have expired in 2018. US Patent Office assignment records show that Hejna sold the '674 patent to eDekka in 2013.