"Cases continue to pile up regarding litigation venue."But there's a reason for their reliance on Mr. Iancu (USPTO Director appointed by Trump after he had worked for Trump). They just aren't getting their way and some have gone out of business; many are about to. Texas court cases (regarding patents) are running low; the dockets dry up.
Cases continue to pile up regarding litigation venue. The Federal Circuit, for instance, at the middle of May delivered a couple of key rulings which we covered here before. Watchtroll wrote about the first one nearly a fortnight late. It is about the Eastern District of Texas and in a nutshell:
After the case was filed in the Eastern District of Texas, ZTE filed a motion to transfer the case to the Northern District of Texas under 28 U.S.C. €§ 1404(a) and filed a motion to dismiss for improper venue under 28 U.S.C. €§ 1406 and €§ 1400(b). The district court ruled that the Eastern District of Texas was a proper venue. Relying on Fifth Circuit law, the district court denied ZTE’s motion to dismiss, finding that ZTE “failed to meet its burden to show that it does not have a regular and established place of business in the District.” ZTE filed a petition for a writ of mandamus alleging that the district court improperly placed the burden of proof on the defendant.
The Court found that a corporation resides only in one judicial district, not all dsitricts within the state where it is incorporated. First, the plain reading of “the judicial district” indicated that Congress had in mind one particular judicial district where the defendant had committed acts of infringement and had a regular and established place of business. Additionally, other venue rules promulgated near the same time as €§ 1400(b) included a clear statement that venue could lie in multiple districts when Congress intended that result. Although Fourco established that incorporation within the state is necessary for venue purposes and sufficient for venue in single-district cases, it did not imply that venue was proper in every district within the state.
"One might joke that James Rodney Gilstrap, who boasted that he was helping his town, actually accomplished the exact opposite thing. He has become a death knell to job opportunities in the whole region."It's just one of those 'shopping list' articles and it has little or nothing to do with Dallas. Some of these companies aren't even American, let alone Texan.
Meanwhile we learn that the University of Texas still goes after companies where they aren't really based! See this update on Board of Regents, The University of Texas System et al v. Medtronic, Inc. et al:
The court denied a defendant's motion to dismiss plaintiffs' patent infringement action for improper venue because defendant had a regular and established place of business in the district by ratifying its subsidiary's manufacturing and research facility as its own place of business.