A blow to patent troll forum shoppers everywhere

The Eastern District of Texas is famously -- er, at least in patent litigation circles -- a "rocket docket" with a judge experienced in dealing with patent cases. This is good for patent plaintiff litigators, because the discovery process is expedited: "Gimme all yer documents now! The Markham hearing is next week, and trial starts next month." Further, the parties don't have to educate the judge on patent caselaw, where there are very specific issues that come up, over and over again, and which the Federal Circuit exclusively addresses. It's a plaintiff-friendly courtroom environment with a jury pool that has a reputation for being sympathetic to patent infringement "victims" whose ideas and hard work have been "stolen."

So you get infringement cases with plaintiffs, especially patent troll plaintiffs, that have pretty much no connection with the Eastern District of Texas trying to find some way, any way to get the case tried there. Until this month, when Nintendo won a mandamus order (PDF) for its lawsuit to be transfered to where it belongs, namely its home venue of the Western District of Washington:

Nintendo [. . .] asked the [Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit] to transfer the case from the Eastern District of Texas to the Western District of Washington, arguing that the dispute had no meaningful connection to Texas. Nintendo is a Japanese company with a Redmond, Wash.-based affilate; [plaintiff] Motiva is an Ohio company; none of the primary witnesses had any connection to Texas, and no evidence was located there, Nintendo maintained. Motiva countered that Nintenda [sic] had not met its burden of proving that another venue would clearly be more convenient. The sale of Wii prodcuts [sic] in Texas was sufficient to give the court jurisdiction over the case, Motiva argued. In June, federal district court judge Leonard Davis sided with Motiva and denied Nintendo's request.

This is the standard argument for forum-shopping in a patent infringement case. "But, judge! They sell their product here! Thus, they should reasonably expect to be haled into court here!" This gets you a couple of points on your patent litigation exam; it's apparently enough for Judge Davis; but the Federal Circuit is tired of it:

In its mandamus order, the Federal Circuit panel found that Judge Davis "clearly abused his discretion" for refusing to transfer the Nintendo case, explaining that "this case features a stark contrast in relevance, convenience, and fairness between the two venues [as n]o parties, witnesses, or evidence have any material connection to the venue chosen by the plaintiff." The court pointedly noted that for similar reasons it had also ordered the transfer of cases brought against TS Tech, Genentech, and Hoffmann-La Roche out of the Eastern District of Texas.

The question now is whether Motiva will file a petition for rehearing before a full panel of the Federal Circuit, and then, if they get the same result, whether they'll pursue taking it to the Supreme Court. If it does go all the way, will SCOTUS slap down the Federal Circuit yet again, as it's done so many times in the past few years?

And when are we gonna get an answer on Bilski, anyway?