Patent-Holding Company Fights To Stay In East Texas

Neither patent-holding company Uniloc nor Google have ties to the Eastern District of Texas, but Uniloc is fighting hard to keep its suit against the search engine giant there, despite a recent Supreme Court ruling that inhibits that kind of venue shopping. In its decision in TC Heartland v. Kraft Foods, the Supreme Court held that patent-holders must sue either where the defendant company is incorporated or where it “has committed acts of infringement and has a regular and established place of business.” That has created a problem for litigious patent-holders like Uniloc who have found a friendly court in East Texas. Uniloc filed a new complaint this week which elaborates on Google’s ties to Texas, showing the Google services at issue – instant messages and voice messages sent over the internet – on the devices of Eastern Texas residents. “Uniloc lawyers also detail at length the offices and employees that Google maintains in Texas – entirely in Dallas and Austin, neither of which are in the Eastern District,” ArsTechnica reports (emphasis theirs). “It’s an incredible amount of utterly irrelevant information that won’t help Uniloc maintain venue.”