By Jason Rantanen
In re Verizon Business Network Services Inc. (Fed. Cir. 2011) Download 10-m956 order
Panel: Lourie, Gajarsa, and Linn (author)
The Federal Circuit continues to grant mandamus petitions relating to venue transfer where the basis for denying the request is tenuous. In Verizon, the defendants requested a transfer from the Eastern District of Texas to the Northern District of Texas, Dallas Division. Although several party witnesses resided within 100 miles of Dallas, and no witness resided within 100 miles of Marshall, the district court declined to transfer venue on the basis that several years earlier the court had handled a lawsuit involving the same patent and had construed 25 of the patent's terms.
Given that it was clear that trial in Dallas would be more convenient for the witnesses, the crux of the writ turned on whether the district court's familiarity with the patent was a plausible basis for denying transfer. The CAFC concluded it was not. Distinguishing its recent ruling in In Re Vistaprint Ltd., 628 F.3d 1342 (Fed. Cir. 2010), the panel held that "[t]o interpret § 1404(a) to hold that any prior suit involving the same patent can override a compelling showing of transfer would be inconsistent with the policies underlying § 1404(a)." Slip Op. at 6. The court continued:
In Vistaprint, we denied mandamus to overturn a denial of transfer and determined that the district court properly considered both its previous experience construing claims of the patent at issue and co-pending litigation before the district court involving the same patent and underlying technology. In this case, there is no assertion that there is an additional pending lawsuit in the Eastern District involving the patent and technology. Absent that, we deem the Eastern District's previous claim construction in a case that settled more than five years before the filing of this lawsuit to be too tenuous a reason to support denial of transfer.
Consequently, the court granted the petition.
At least now the parties can avoid that nauseating banana smell.
While 100 miles isn’t along distance in Texas it is a PITA. The comment about the motel is spot on. Support local business!
150 miles away? For like all the witnesses? Does that 150 miles come with a free hotel room courtesy of the court? A court would have to have a substantial amount of hubris to think that simply keeping the case there was worth everyone’s time. Indeed, it appears in this case they certainly did.
This may be an inane comment that has no legal basis, but 100 miles in Texas is really not that much. Marshall is less than 150 miles from Dallas on Interstate 20 (i.e. less than a 3 hour drive). My guess is that the defendants thought they had a better shot at winning by moving out of the Eastern District. But what would we have to talk about if the law was determined by common sense?
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