Posts Tagged: "transfer"

In what may foreshadow upcoming changes to case allocations in the Western District of Texas, Judge Alan Albright of the Waco Division appears to have revived his former practice of retaining cases transferred from the Waco Division to the Austin Division following granted Section 1404 motions (i.e., convenience transfers). In his first years on the bench, Judge Albright habitually retained cases transferred out of Waco to the “sister” Austin Division on his personal docket. As one of the more notable examples, all three of the (much-covered) VLSI v. Intel litigations were transferred to Austin and retained by Judge Albright; two of the three cases were then retransferred back to Waco to allow trial to timely proceed, notwithstanding COVID-related closures in Austin.

Brooks Sports, a sports apparel company that was sued by Puma SE and Puma North America, Inc. (for patent and trademark infringement in Indiana, won its motion to transfer the case to a new district court on January 20. Judge Richard L. Young of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Indiana ruled Friday that the case will be transferred to the Western District of Washington. Brooks Sports’ headquarters is based in Seattle, Washington. Brooks argued that moving the case closer to its base would be convenient for both parties as well as witnesses. Judge Young agreed and cited Puma’s lack of presence in Indiana as another supporting reason to move the case to Washington.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) today denied General Motors’ petition for a writ of mandamus seeking to compel Judge Alan Albright to transfer a patent infringement case brought against GM by Intellectual Ventures (IV) to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan. IV sued GM in Albright’s Western District of Texas court for infringing 12 patents covering services and products installed in GM cars, including certain features of GM’s OnStar service. GM moved to transfer the case to Michigan, arguing that “the employees most knowledgeable about the design and development of the accused products and certain third-party component suppliers” are based there. IV countered that GM has “an IT Innovation Center” in Austin, Texas, where employees knowledgeable about the accused technology work.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) earlier this week shot down a petition for writ of mandamus filed by Amazon.com, Inc. asking the court to vacate an Order by Judge Alan Albright of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas denying Amazon transfer of a case to the Northern District of California. VoIP-Pal sued Amazon in the Western District of Texas, alleging infringement of its patents through the sale of Amazon’s “’communications platform,’ including the server structure, Alexa calling devices, and Alexa software applications running on those devices.” Amazon sought transfer to California, claiming that the middleware of the accused products was developed by employees based there. In its opposition, VoIP-Pal submitted evidence that “[t]echnical documentation relating to the work of the DeviceOS and Echo Platform Software teams is maintained at the Austin offices.”

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) in a precedential order yesterday granted a petition for writ of mandamus vacating Judge Rodney Gilstrap’s transfer of two cases out of the Eastern District of Texas to California. The petition was brought by Stingray IP Solutions, LLP and was opposed by TP-Link Technologies, a Chinese company, which Stingray accused of patent infringement. Stingray first filed the patent infringement suits in the Eastern District of Texas and TP-Link moved to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction or to transfer the cases to the Central District of California pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1406. After the Texas court granted transfer under Section 1406, Stingray petitioned the Federal Circuit for mandamus “solely on the issue of whether TP-Link’s unilateral, post-suit consent to personal jurisdiction in another state (California) defeated application of Rule 4(k)(2).”

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) today granted Amazon, Inc.’s petition for a writ of mandamus asking that Judge Alan Albright of the Western District of Texas be directed to sever claims brought by Flygrip, Inc. against it from claims made against another defendant and to transfer the case to a Colorado district court. Flygrip sued Amazon for direct and indirect patent infringement based on resale on Amazon’s platform of handheld-device cases manufactured by PopSockets, Otter Products and Quest USA Corp. PopSockets and Otter are headquartered in Colorado, so Amazon moved to transfer the case to the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado.

Yesterday, Chief Judge Orlando Garcia of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas issued an order that, in Garcia’s words, will “equitably distribute” new patent cases among 12 district judges. This order is an effort to address “the volume” of new cases assigned to the Waco Division’s Judge Alan Albright. Albright’s court is viewed as patent owner friendly and he has been under fire recently from both the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) and Congress on different fronts for his policies and procedures, which do tend more often than not to give patent owners their day in court.

On May 23, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued an order in In re: Google, LLC granting petitions by Google, Waze and Samsung seeking writs of mandamus to direct the Eastern District of Texas to transfer a trio of patent infringement suits brought by patent owner AGIS Software Development to the Northern District of California. Although the Federal Circuit’s order is non-precedential, it continues the appellate court’s recent penchant for exercising mandamus relief in venue issues that some commentators have found questionable, at best.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) on Friday directed Judge Alan Albright’s Waco Division of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas to transfer a case brought by CPC Patent Technologies PTY Ltd against Apple to the Northern District of California. The CAFC said the district court erred in weighing the convenience of the witnesses factor as only slightly favoring transfer, noting that the court has historically rejected the view that this factor should be based solely on the distance the witness would have to travel.

Just as some sources had begun to speculate that Judge Alan Albright had received the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit’s (CAFC’s) message on transfer—in light of a slew of decisions reversing his refusals to move cases out of his court—the CAFC yesterday granted two more petitions for mandamus relief, holding the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas clearly abused its discretion in not granting a change of venue.

In December 2020, StratosAudio, Inc. (Stratos) filed patent infringement complaints in the Western District of Texas against Volkswagen and Hyundai (the Petitioners) which are incorporated in New Jersey and California, respectively. The two cases were consolidated on appeal. Since both Volkswagen and Hyundai reside outside of the Western District of Texas, the two companies moved to dismiss or transfer the cases under 28 U.S.C. §1406(a) and Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(3).

On August 3, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) affirmed the Eastern District of Texas’ partial grant of Victoria’s Secret Stores LLC, Victoria’s Secret Stores Brand Management Inc, and Victoria’s Secret Direct Brand Management’s (the Defendants) motion to dismiss Andra Group, LP’s (Andra’s) patent infringement suit for improper venue. In April 2019, Andra sued the Defendants for infringement of U.S. Patent No. 8,078,498 (‘498 patent), which claims inventions directed to presenting articles on a webpage. Andra’s infringement claims focus on the victoriassecret.com website, and other functional smartphone applications for using the “master display field,” which the ‘498 patent claims.

On November 9, the Federal Circuit granted Apple’s petition for a writ of mandamus directing the Western District of Texas to transfer Uniloc’s patent infringement suit against Apple to the Northern District of California. Judge Moore dissented, asserting that the majority applied an incorrect standard of review.

The Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit recently issued a decision in Capitol Records, LLC v. ReDigi Inc. affirming a previous finding out of the Southern District of New York that ReDigi’s digital music file reselling platform infringed upon the plaintiffs’ copyright to the music files being resold. The Second Circuit panel upheld the lower court’s decision over ReDigi’s arguments that its platform enabled the lawful resale of digital music files under the first sale doctrine.