So holds the Federal Circuit in its July 28, 2020 decision in In re Adobe Inc. (available here) issuing a writ of mandamus directing the Western District of Texas to transfer a patent case brought against Adobe to the Northern District of California. In In re Adobe, the defendant Adobe was located in San Jose, California and the plaintiff located in Delaware. Adobe sought transfer to the Northern District of California, noting that its witnesses were in the Northern District of California, as was the inventor and his company which had assigned the patents to the plaintiff.
The district court denied Adobe’s motion. The single factor weighing in favor of retaining the case was the “court congestion” factor.
The Federal Circuit found that the district court committed “several errors.” It “failed to accord the full weight of the convenience factors it considered and weighed in favor of transfer.” The district court also “overlooked that the willing witness factor also favored transferring the case.” Third, the district court “ran afoul of governing precedent in giving dispositive weight to its ability to more quickly schedule a trial.”
As the Western District of Texas has recently become the number 1 venue for patent-infringement lawsuits in the United States, one could expect that In re Adobe will result in more cases being transferred out of the Western District of Texas.