Patent Law Practice Center

CAFC Moving Cases On Up Out of Delaware

A motion to transfer a patent case out of Delaware was granted by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, thus setting a potential precedent for patent litigation that is often brought in Delaware. Patent litigation frequently begins in Delaware as the majority of U.S. corporations are incorporated there. Because corporations go out of their way to be registered in Delaware, it has been a long settled principle that cases cannot be transferred out of the Circuit of Delaware as the corporations freely chose to incorporate there in the first place.

On December 2, 2011, the CAFC granted a writ petition on behalf of the defendants to transfer the case to the Northern District of California, focusing on the fact that although the corporation was incorporated, there are others issues a court will look at in considering changing the venue, such as convenience of witness location as well as the location of the corporation/moving party’s business records and documents. The Circuit of Delaware’s rationale that the choice to incorporate in Delaware implies the choice to try cases in Delaware courts is not all that unreasonable. However, as reasonable as the court’s rationale is, the reasoning does not outright prohibit the right to move for a venue change when such a change would facilitate convenience and court efficiency.

Time will tell if the CAFC’s ruling will impact the Circuit of Delaware’s future decisions regarding transferring cases out of Connecticut. If anything, the ruling could just be setting up a precedent for litigants to simply attempt a venue change where they would not have done so before.