The U.S. Supreme Court will soon decide whether the plain language of the patent venue statute—or the Federal Circuit’s 27-year-old deviation from it—will dictate the appropriate venue for patent infringement litigation. A decision to return to the patent venue statute would narrow the current standard, and undoubtedly lead to many new patent filings in the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware, taking back a substantial portion of the docket of the current king of new patent infringement complaints, the Eastern District of Texas.
Currently, patent infringement plaintiffs may file suit in any federal district court where the accused infringer makes sales or is otherwise subject to personal jurisdiction. This broad standard was established by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in VE Holding v. Johnson Gas Appliance, 917 F.2d 1574 (Fed. Cir. 1990), and has been the prevailing rule for the past 27 years. Although commentators frequently lament that the VE Holding standard is overly broad because it allows plaintiffs to choose a venue that favors the plaintiff regardless of the place of business or formation of the defendant, the standard has largely gone unchallenged. Now, and following oral arguments held on March 27, the issue is ripe for the Supreme Court to decide in TC Heartland v. Kraft Foods Group Brands, No. 16-341 (S. Ct. argued Mar. 27, 2017).
