Apple gets patent infringement suit moved from Texas

In a victory for Apple Inc., a federal appellate panel on Monday granted the tech giant's writ petition seeking to transfer a holding company's patent infringement lawsuit to California.

A divided panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit sided with Apple's petition to transfer Uniloc 2017 LLC's lawsuit from the Western District of Texas, a newly popular venue for patent plaintiffs, to the Northern District of California.

U.S. District Judge Alan D. Albright helped create a popular patent venue in Waco, Texas since he was appointed to the bench in 2018.

Silicon Valley technology companies that are defendants in patent litigation have sought, as they do in the Eastern District of Texas, to transfer the cases to California.

Judge Sharon Prost, writing for the majority, ruled Albright abused his discretion in denying the transfer motion and also chided him for making other rulings before deciding where the case should be tried.

"Although district courts have discretion as to how to handle their dockets, once a party files a transfer motion, disposing of that motion should unquestionably take top priority," Prost wrote.

Instead, Albright "barreled ahead on the merits in significant respects, prompting Apple to file its mandamus petition before the district court issued its transfer order," Prost added, citing claim construction and discovery orders. In re: Apple, 2020-135 (Fed. Cir., filed June 16, 2020).

Prost also concluded Albright erred in concluding the location of documents relevant in the case did not weigh in favor of transferring the case to California, adding it gave too much weight to Uniloc's arguments for keeping the case in Texas.

Apple argued that other Uniloc patent infringement lawsuits against it also had been transferred, but Albright -- in denying the transfer motion in a written ruling in June -- said the latest case involves a different patent and technology on a system to control software upgrades.

Federal Circuit Judge Kimberly A. Moore, in a pointed dissent, argued Apple has a large campus in Austin where it employs 8,000 people and where the allegedly infringing product was manufactured.

"It is not for us to criticize the district court's weighing of these facts," Moore wrote. "It is Apple's burden to prove that the local interest factor weighs in favor of transfer. On this record, the district court did not clearly abuse its discretion in finding that Apple failed to meet that burden."

Moore accused Prost and Federal Circuit Judge Todd M. Hughes, who signed the majority opinion, of granting the petition simply because they disagreed with Albright.

"Rather than conducting this limited review, the majority usurps the district court's role in the transfer process, disregards our standard of review and substitutes its judgment for that of the district court," Moore wrote.

"I am concerned that the majority's blatant disregard for the district court's thorough fact findings and for our role in a petition for mandamus will invite further petitions based almost entirely on ad hominem attacks on esteemed jurists similar to those Apple wages here," she added.

Prost retorted by calling Moore's dissent a "baseless and counterproductive statement about our order."

The pointed back and forth in the opinion suggests the venue battles over patent cases in Texas courts are far from over.

Melanie L. Bostwick, an attorney with Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP who represented Apple on the appeal, could not be reached for comment. Apple also did not return a message as of press time.

Uniloc's attorney, Christian John Hurt of The Davis Firm P.C., also could not be reached.