United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas  The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas (in case citations, E.D. Tex.) is a federal court in the Fifth Circuit (except for patent claims and claims against the U.S. government under the Tucker Act, which are appealed to the Federal Circuit). The District was established on February 21, 1857, with the division of the state into an Eastern and Western District. The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas is one of four federal judicial districts in Texas. Court for the District is held at Beaumont, Lufkin, Marshall, Plano, Sherman, Texarkana, and Tyler. Beaumont Division comprises the following counties: Hardin, Jasper, Jefferson, Liberty, Newton, and Orange. Lufkin Division comprises the following counties: Angelina, Houston, Nacogdoches, Polk, Sabine, San Augustine, Shelby, Trinity, and Tyler. Marshall Division comprises the following counties: Camp, Cass, Harrison, Marion, Morris, and Upshur. Sherman Division comprises the following counties: Collin, Cooke, Delta, Denton, Fannin, Grayson, Hopkins, and Lamar. Texarkana Division comprises the following counties: Bowie, Franklin, Red River, and Titus. Tyler Division comprises the following counties: Anderson, Cherokee, Gregg, Henderson, Panola, Rains, Rusk, Smith, Van Zandt, and Wood. The United States Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Texas represents the United States in civil and criminal litigation in the court. The current United States Attorney is Stephen J. Cox. The first federal judge in Texas was John C. Watrous, who was appointed on May 26, 1846, and had previously served as Attorney General of the Republic of Texas. He was assigned to hold court in Galveston, at the time, the largest city in the state. As seat of the Texas Judicial District, the Galveston court had jurisdiction over the whole state. The Eastern District of Texas currently hears the most patent cases in the country and has seen an increase in the number of cases filed relating to patent infringement, notably in the courts of Judge T. John Ward in the Marshall Division, Judge Leonard Davis in the Tyler Division, and Judge David Folsom in the Texarkana Division and now Judge J. Rodney Gilstrap in the Marshall Division and Judge Robert W. Schroeder III in the Texarkana Division, as well as Magistrate Judges Roy S. Payne, John Love and K. Nicole Mitchell.