Mandamus Lite—Great Taste, Less Filling?

Judge Albright followed the Federal Circuit's venue roadmap. Will the Federal Circuit like the result? And EDTX gives us a rare, detailed look at 251 defenses.

Texas is home to over 40% of all patent litigation. And with that many on-going cases, important changes happen weekly. To keep you updated, Michael Smith, author of the award winning edtexweblog.com, shares both his research and his local perspective about what's happening around the entire state.  

 

SPEAKERS

Wayne Stacy, Michael Smith

 

Wayne Stacy  00:00

Welcome, everyone to this week's episode of the Berkeley Center for Law and Technology's Last Week in Texas podcast. This is your host, Wayne Stacy, the Executive Director for BCLT. And once again, we have Michael Smith with us here to talk about what's been going on in Texas last week. So, Michael, let's just get to it and tell us what happened last week?

 

Michael Smith  00:25

Well, I think what most people were interested in is that in the Western District of Texas Judge Alan Albright issued orders in response to Federal Circuit opinions, which had strongly indicated that he ought to transfer the cases. The first was the Ikorongo case, which was transferred to the Northern District of California in light of the Federal circuit's guidance. Now the order doesn't say much. But this was one of the cases where the Federal Circuit said that the party was manipulating the venue statute and not in the good way.

 

Wayne Stacy  00:59

So I guess I got to ask, Is there a good way to manipulate the venue statute?

 

Michael Smith  01:02

There there is the good way to manipulate the venue statute is when the defendant restricts their activity in a district. So suit can't be brought there.

 

Wayne Stacy  01:10

Okay. But obviously, the Federal circuit's thought there was a bad way too?

 

Michael Smith  01:14

Right and the bad way is when plaintiff restricts their activity in a district so suit can't be brought there. And this was that that latter situation, the plaintiff that was asserting the claims had been created with the ability to sue only in the Eastern and the western districts of Texas, because it couldn't have sued the defendant in California, venue wouldn't be proper there. And the Federal Circuit said, we're not going to allow that. And Judge Albright transferred the case to California based on that. I don't know that this is the last word on that tactic. But it is of interest that Judge Albright did transfer that case after getting the federal circuit's guidance.

 

Wayne Stacy  01:55

Well, and that that's an interesting point, you make that this is the first case about this type of plaintiff restricted activity. We'll see if plaintiffs find more creative and maybe less. Oh, ham handed ways to go about it in the future. So I think you're right, we'll, we're gonna see more more trials on this. Well, that was one of the two cases what's the other one?

 

Michael Smith  02:22

The other one is our mandamus light case. You remember a couple of weeks ago, we talked about in in Ray dish. The Federal Circuit said that Judge Albright had erred in his venue determination. But they didn't Grant mandamus. They said, well, in light of this guidance, we're confident that the court will take this into consideration and and make the right ruling. And the dissent Judge Reyna called it mandamus light and said, well, either either we grant mandamus, or we don't bu