US Top Court Considers Changing Where Patent Cases May Be Filed (reuters.com)

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday grappled over whether to upend a quarter-century of practice and limit where patent-infringement lawsuits can be filed. From a report on Reuters: The U.S. Supreme Court struggled over whether to upend nearly 30 years of law governing patent lawsuits that critics say allows often-baseless litigants to sue in friendly courts, giving them the upper hand over high-technology companies such as Apple and Alphabet Google. The justices heard an hour of arguments in an appeal by beverage flavoring company TC Heartland LLC to have a patent infringement suit brought against it by food and beverage company Kraft Heinz moved from federal court in Delaware, where it was filed, to Heartland's home base in Indiana. TC Heartland is challenging a lower court ruling denying a transfer to Indiana. Even though the case did not involve a lawsuit filed in Texas, the arguments involved the peculiar fact that the bulk of patent litigation in the United States is occurring in a single, rural region of East Texas, far from the centers of technology and innovation in the United States. Critics have said the federal court there has rulings and procedures favoring entities that generate revenue by suing over patents instead of making products, sometimes called "patent trolls." The outcome of the TC Heartland case could be profoundly felt in the East Texas courts. The justices could curtail where patent lawsuits may be launched, limiting them to where a defendant company is incorporated and potentially making it harder to get to trial or score lucrative jury verdicts.

Comments

FINALLY!!

[rkhalloran]

About time they weighed in on "venue-shopping" by trolls. Either of the defendant or plaintiff's headquarters' locations.

Re:FINALLY!!

[Anonymous Coward]

There are already shell companies operating out of offices in East Texas. Limiting venues is a step in the right direction, but more work needs to be done. How about limits on who can profit from the litigation? That would render shell companies useless. Invalidating NDAs over patent demands? All those Microsoft threatened before Barnes & Noble would have appreciated that. Reversing settlements if the patents-in-suit are invalidated? US companies still lay off workers or go under if their arrangement with a troll outlives the patents. More clarity at the federal level for when courts need to wait for USPTO re-examination? The first Apple v. Samsung case would have been a bit different. Actually funding the USPTO for a change? Think of how many stupid patents would get rejected if they could spend more man hours looking for prior art. Sweeping acts to invalidate existing software patents? They're just waiting to be invalidated anyway, grab the bull by the horns.

Re:A quarter century

[amiga3D]

In the tech industry it's an incredible length of time. 25 years ago Intel introduced the 80486DX2, the same year Commodore Business Machines launched the Amiga 1200 computer. I now emulate an Amiga 1200 at full speed on a Raspberry Pi 3, a 35 dollar throwaway computer board. 25 years in the tech industry sees companies rise and fall and products come out, go obsolete and their replacement go obsolete, etc....

Re:A quarter century

[JoeMerchant]

25 years saw this nation move from a British Colony, through a war of independence and a provisional government, into one based on the present Constitution, move its capital from Philadelphia to a dedicated federal district, and double its population from ~2.5 million to more than 5 million.

Doesn't matter when you live, a lot happens in 25 years, or relatively little, depending on what you focus on.