Samsung Failed To Prove It Deserves Transfer Of Patent Infringement Case To California: CAFC

Samsung Failed To Prove It Deserves Transfer Of Patent Infringement Case To California: CAFC

Among other factors, the district court further found that SEA has a large presence in the ED of Texas with connections to the case; that Google was not a party; and that most of the technical documents were outside either forum, in Korea.

Samsung has lost its bid at the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) to transfer a suit brought against it by Mullen Industries LLC from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas to the Northern District of California. Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. (SEC) and Samsung Electronics America, Inc. (SEA) were sued by Mullen in Judge Rodney Gilstrap’s Texas court for infringement of Mullen’s patents through Samsung smartphones, tablets, and watches, including Google Maps and Wear OS functionalities, both of which were developed by Google.

Based mostly on Google’s presence there, Samsung moved to transfer the case to the Northern District of California (NDCA), and the district court denied the motion. Samsung’s motion had reportedly stated: “SEA has offices with over 200 regular full-time employees in the NDCA” but the district court ruled that Samsung had failed to provide adequate evidence of the facilities and their operations to support the transfer. Among other factors, the district court further found that SEA has a large presence in the ED of Texas with connections to the case; that Google was not a party; and that most of the technical documents were outside either forum, in Korea. While the NDCA would be more convenient for Google witnesses and SEC witnesses in Korea, “Any comparative advantage to NDCA in this regard was tempered by the presence of potential SEA employee witnesses in EDTX, including that ‘Defendants have tested at least one of the accused functionalities in this District’ and Samsung used non-Google software or an adapted version of Google’s software for two of the three accused functionalities,” the district court said. Finding the remaining factors neutral, the court ultimately denied transfer.

The CAFC in its order refusing Samsung’s petition for a writ of mandamus said that Samsung had failed to meet the ‘demanding standard’ for establishing entitlement to mandamus relief. Importantly, the CAFC said that “Samsung dedicated a perfunctory sentence in its transfer motion to assert venue over SEA in NDCA was proper,” leading the district court to focus “on that de minimis presentation”. The CAFC said it could not say about Samsung’s argument that the court should have given more weight to the NDCA’s convenience for potential witnesses and sources of proof that there was a clear abuse of discretion in the court’s conclusion or that Samsung had shown NDCA was “clearly more convenient”.