A bill that would put into statute an appellate decision making it easier for defendants to move patent cases to other venues has been approved by the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee and has moved to the Senate floor.
The Patent Reform Act of 2009 was changed in committee to add a provision allowing cases to have their venue changed if a party can show that the new locale would be “clearly more convenient” for witnesses, the parties and the interests of justice.
That standard is based on an October decision by the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, which hears patent appeals, involving the moving of a case from the Eastern District to the Southern District of Ohio. That case is called In re TS Tech USA Corp.
Now, he said, it’s clearer what the factors should be in getting a case moved. “You’re seeing a lot of judges doing analysis, [such as] adding up flight miles to one location and looking at where the documents are,” he said. “They come up with a pretty clear reason for why they either transfer or don’t transfer.”
William Munck, chairman of the Dallas-based law firm Munck Carter, said that while the changes in the bill are significant, towns in the Eastern District of Texas will see plenty of patent cases for some time.
http://dallas.bizjournals.com/austin/stories/2009/04/27/story13.html