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Mandamus

Mandamus Denied but Jurisdictional Door Left Open a Crack

by Thomas DaMario | Apr 4, 2024 | Patents

The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit denied a patent owner’s writ of mandamus seeking to prevent a defendant from amending its answer to add an affirmative licensing defense, but also noted that the defense was added only after the district court found that there were no remaining claims. In re VLSI Technology LLC, Case No. 24-116 (Fed. Cir. Mar. 18, 2024) (Moore, Taranto, Chen, JJ.)

VLSI asserted four patents against Intel in the Northern District of California. In December 2023, the district court granted summary judgment that two of the patents were not infringed and denied summary judgment of noninfringement on the remaining two patents. The parties additionally submitted cross motions for summary judgment on a licensing defense that turned on a forum selection clause, but the court denied both motions. To deprive the court of jurisdiction, VLSI granted Intel a covenant not to sue for infringement of the remaining two patents in the case. Two days later, Intel moved to amend its answer to add a counterclaim for a declaratory judgment that Intel was licensed to VLSI’s entire patent portfolio. The district court granted Intel’s motion, and VLSI filed a mandamus petition to block Intel’s amendment.

The Federal Circuit denied VLSI’s petition for two primary reasons. First, the Court determined that VLSI had not shown that it had no other available means of obtaining relief. The district court expressly invited the parties to brief issues pertaining to Intel’s licensing defense in subsequent briefing, and VLSI had since filed a motion to dismiss pertaining to this very issue. The Court also noted that VLSI could raise this issue on appeal after a final judgment. Second, the Court determined that VLSI failed to show that the district court abused its discretion in allowing Intel to amend its answer, finding that Intel acted diligently in seeking to amend its answer and that VLSI had long since known about the potential defense.

With respect to the substantive issue of whether the district court had subject matter jurisdiction, the Federal Circuit declined to offer an opinion at this stage. Nevertheless, in an apparent message to the court below, the final sentence of the Court’s opinion reads, “[w]e only note that Intel’s motion to amend its answer was filed after the court determined there were no remaining claims, such that no case or controversy remained before the court.”

Transfer Motions Take Priority Regardless of Target District

by Jodi Benassi | Mar 16, 2023 | Patents

The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit granted a writ of mandamus and ordered the district court to decide a motion for intra-district transfer before proceeding to further substantive matters, explaining that both intra-district and inter-district transfer motions must be prioritized. In re: Apple Inc., Case No. 23-120 (Fed. Cir. Mar. 6, 2023) (per curiam) (nonprecedential).

SpaceTime3D sued Apple for patent infringement in February 2022 in the Western District of Texas, Waco Division. In July 2022, Apple moved to transfer the action within the Western District to Austin. The motion was fully briefed by the parties on November 7, 2022. The claim construction hearing was scheduled for November 17, 2022, based on an agreement between the parties. The day before the hearing, Apple moved to stay the hearing and all other proceedings until the district court ruled on Apple’s pending motion to transfer. The district court deferred claim construction, then denied Apple’s stay motion. The district court acknowledged that it was required to prioritize a motion for inter-district transfer but stated that “it does not have to stay the proceedings or decide whether to transfer the case intra-district until closer to trial.” Apple filed a writ of mandamus with the Federal Circuit.

The Federal Circuit noted that although the remedy of mandamus is drastic and should be invoked only in extraordinary situations, it has previously granted mandamus “to correct a clearly arbitrary refusal to act on a longstanding pending transfer motion.” The Federal Circuit stated that under Fifth Circuit law, precedent entitles parties to have their transfer motions prioritized. The Federal Circuit was not swayed by the trial court’s reliance on a statement in an unpublished, nonprecedential Fifth Circuit decision in Sundell v. Cisco Systems, Inc., because the Fifth Circuit did not suggest any discretion in the prioritization of transfer motions based on the type of transfer. The Federal Circuit explained that the Fifth Circuit does not require that inter-district transfer motions be prioritized to the exclusion of intra-district transfer motions. The Federal Circuit granted Apple’s petition for mandamus and ordered the district court to timely decide the transfer motion before proceeding with further substantive matters beyond the claim construction hearing.

Things May Be Bigger in Texas, but Not Necessarily More Convenient

by Benjamin Ediger, Ph.D. | Feb 16, 2023 | Patents

The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit granted a mandamus petition after analyzing the Fifth Circuit’s public and private interest factors for transfer motions and ordered the US District Court for the Western District of Texas to transfer a case to the petitioner’s venue. In re Google LLC, Case No. 23-101 (Fed. Cir. Feb. 1, 2023) (Lourie, Taranto, Stark, JJ.).

Jawbone Innovations, LLC, had an eventful 2021:

February: Incorporated in Texas
May: Obtained ownership of nine patents (all directed to technologies behind the eponymous product line that liquidated in July 2017)
August: Rented office space in Waco, Texas
September: Asserted the nine patents it just acquired against Google in the Western District of Texas–Waco Division.

Google moved to transfer the dispute to the US District Court for the Northern District of California. That district was where (1) the accused products (earbuds, smartphones, speakers, displays and software) were researched, designed and developed; (2) the asserted technology was developed, and the asserted patents were prosecuted; and (3) the witnesses and sources of proof were primarily located. In contrast, no witnesses or sources of proof were located in the Western District of Texas. Moreover, Jawbone Innovations had no personnel in Waco nor activities related to the accused technology in the whole of Texas.

Judge Albright nevertheless denied Google’s transfer motion, weighing the Fifth Circuit’s four public interest factors and four private interest factors and finding that the transferee venue failed to meet the Fifth Circuit’s “clearly more convenient” standard. With the district court finding half of the eight factors not favoring either the transferee or the transferor, its holding boiled down to a ruling that considerations of “court congestion” and “judicial economy” (found to favor the transferor) outweighed considerations of “unwilling witness compulsion” and the “cost of attendance for willing witnesses” (found to favor the transferee).

Google petitioned the Federal Circuit for a writ of mandamus. The Court, applying the Fifth Circuit’s eight factor test, identified clear error in the district court’s analysis of five of the factors.

First: Addressing the “cost of attendance for willing witnesses” factor, the Federal Circuit found error in the district court’s conclusion that this factor only slightly favored transfer. Rather, the Court explained that this factor “weigh[ed] heavily in favor of transfer” because the transferee venue was clearly more convenient for potential witnesses, especially Google employees with technical, marketing and financial knowledge of the accused products. The error was localized to how the district court considered a Google declaration identifying at least 11 potential employee witnesses (all of whom were located in the transferee venue) and Jawbone Innovations’ assertions that the declaration omitted three potentially relevant Texas-based employees. The Court noted that while this 11 to three imbalance alone was sufficient to settle this factor, the district court’s error went further, finding Google’s declaration unreliable and less worthy of consideration because of the alleged omissions. The Federal Circuit determined this was error on error because the district court improperly ignored that the depositions [...]

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That Stings: Consent to Jurisdiction Must Be Effective at Filing to Invoke Fed. R. Civ. P. 4(k)(2)

by Joshua Revilla | Jan 19, 2023 | Patents

The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, on petition for writ of mandamus, vacated the district court’s transfer order and remanded the transfer to be considered under the clarified parameters of Fed. R. Civ. P. 4(k)(2) and 28 U.S.C. § 1404. In re: Stingray IP Solutions, LLC, Case No. 2023-102 (Fed. Cir. Jan. 9, 2023) (Lourie, Taranto, Stark, JJ.)

Stingray filed patent infringement suits in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas against TP-Link, a company headquartered and organized in China. TP-Link moved to transfer to the Central District of California (CDCA) under 28 U.S.C. § 1406 citing an alleged lack of personal jurisdiction that Rule 4(k)(2) did not cure because TP-Link would be amenable to suit in the CDCA. TP-Link also moved for transfer under 28 U.S.C. § 1404(a). The district court granted the motion to transfer under § 1406 based on the rationale that TP-Link was amenable to suit in the CDCA and relying on affirmative reservations made by TP-Link that the CDCA had proper jurisdiction and venue. The district court denied TP-Link’s § 1404(a) motion as moot following the transfer. Stingray filed a mandamus petition asking the Federal Circuit to determine whether TP-Link’s unilateral, post-suit consent to personal jurisdiction in another state defeated application of Rule (4)(k)(2).

The Federal Circuit first determined that mandamus review was appropriate in this case in order to resolve the question of whether a defendant can defeat personal jurisdiction under Rule 4(k)(2) by unilaterally consenting to suit in a different district, a jurisdictional question that has divided district courts. Some district courts have held that personal jurisdiction cannot be established under Rule 4(k)(2) if a defendant states that it is amenable to suit in another state, while others have concluded that defendants must do more than simply designate an alternative forum in order to avoid application of Rule 4(k)(2).

Rule 4(k)(2) was originally introduced to close a loophole where non-resident defendants without minimum contact with any individual state suitable to support jurisdiction, but with sufficient contacts with the United States as a whole, were able to escape jurisdiction in all 50 states. The rule essentially provided that under federal claims, serving a summons or filing a waiver of service could establish personal jurisdiction if the defendant was not subject to a state’s general jurisdiction and exercising jurisdiction would be consistent with the US Constitution and laws.

Here, the case focused on the “negation requirement” of Rule 4(k)(2) where the defendant is not subject to any jurisdiction of a state court. This case addressed the question of whether a defendant’s post-suit, unilateral consent to suit in another state prevents the requirement that a defendant is not subject to a state’s general jurisdiction from being satisfied.

The Federal Circuit determined that the “negation requirement” requires defendants to identify a forum where jurisdiction would have been proper at the time of filing, regardless of consent. The Court determined that therefore a defendant cannot use a “unilateral statement of consent” to [...]

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Message to Judge Albright: Venue Motions Are First Order of Business

by Jodi Benassi | Nov 17, 2022 | Patents

The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit vacated a scheduling order from the US District Court for the Western District of Texas and directed the court to postpone fact discovery and other substantive proceedings until it considered a motion for transfer. In re: Apple Inc., Case No. 22-162 (Fed. Cir. Nov. 8, 2022) (Reyna, J.) The Federal Circuit ordered that Apple’s motion to transfer must proceed expeditiously as the first order of business, precluding fact discovery and other substantive matters. The Court has repeatedly scolded Judge Albright for his refusal to transfer patent cases out of the Western District of Texas.

Aire Technology sued Apple for patent infringement in October 2021. In April 2022, Apple moved to transfer the action to the US District Court for the Northern District of California, pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1404(a). During venue discovery, Apple submitted declarations by its employees, offered to make the declarants available for deposition, and stated non-opposition to a “reasonable continuance” of the transfer proceedings. Judge Albright granted Apple’s motion but sua sponte ordered the parties to complete fact discovery (which the court extended by 30 weeks) followed by another six weeks of rebriefing before he would rule on Apple’s request to transfer. Apple filed a petition for mandamus with the Federal Circuit seeking an order to vacate the district court’s scheduling order and promptly rule on the transfer motion, staying all proceedings on the merits until the transfer was resolved.

Apple argued that the district court abused its discretion in ordering the parties to complete 30 more weeks of fact discovery and six weeks of rebriefing the issue to decide on Apple’s transfer request. Apple noted that by the time the district court considered Apple’s motion, a full year would have elapsed since Apple initially sought the transfer, fact discovery would be completed, the parties’ infringement and invalidity contentions would be served, the asserted claims and prior art references would be narrowed, and the parties would have exchanged preliminary trial exhibits and witness lists.

The Federal Circuit agreed with Apple that the district court’s scheduling order went too far. The Court stated that “it is a clear abuse of discretion to require the parties to expend additional party and court resources litigating the substantive matters of the case while Apple’s motion to transfer unnecessarily lingers on the docket.” The Court noted that Aire consented to resolving Apple’s transfer motion at any time, provided that no stay interfered with discovery, claim construction proceedings or preparation of the case for trial.

The Federal Circuit disagreed with the district court’s view that delaying the decision until after full fact discovery and rebriefing could reduce “speculation” and “allow the parties to provide the court with the best evidence for ruling on a motion to transfer.” The Court stated that discovery on the transfer motion itself was sufficient to allow a decision of that motion, especially because the parties agreed that further venue discovery was unnecessary. The Federal Circuit ordered the district [...]

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Remote Employees Support Patent Venue

by Katherine Pappas | Oct 13, 2022 | Patents

In a per curiam opinion, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit denied a petition for a writ of mandamus seeking to direct the district court to dismiss or transfer the underlying case based on improper venue. In doing so, the Court pointed to remote workers residing in the district to find satisfaction in the venue statute. In re Monolithic Power Systems, Inc., Case No. 22-153 (Fed. Cir. Sept. 30, 2022) (Lourie, Chen, Stark, JJ.) (per curiam) (Lourie, J., dissenting)

Bel Power brought suit in the Western District of Texas alleging that Monolithic infringed Bel Power’s patents by selling power modules used in electronic devices. Monolithic had four remote employees working from home in the district. Monolithic moved to dismiss or transfer to the Northern District of California, arguing that because it was a Delaware corporation without property in the district, venue was not proper under § 1400(b). The district court denied both requests, finding that Monolithic maintained a business presence in the district as contemplated by § 1400(b) by soliciting employment in the district and providing employees with equipment used at or distributed from their homes as part of their employment responsibilities.

In denying the motion to transfer, the district court found that Monolithic had not established that the Northern District of California was clearly more convenient. Monolithic filed for mandamus seeking to overturn either ruling.

The Federal Circuit denied relief. With regard to venue, the Court reasoned that “the district court’s ruling does not involve the type of broad, fundamental, and recurring legal question or usurpation of judicial power that might warrant immediate mandamus review.” Instead, the Court credited the factual findings regarding the amount of equipment Monolithic provided to one of its employees in the district for “the sole purpose” of allowing him “to conduct testing and validation as part of his job,” and ruled that post-judgment appeal would be an adequate alternative means for attaining relief. On the issue of transfer (reviewed under regional circuit law), the Court denied for failure to establish a clear abuse of discretion, noting that this “is not a case in which there is only one correct outcome.”

Judge Lourie dissented, arguing that “[m]ost basically, Monolithic lacks a regular and established place of business in the Western District of Texas, as the statute requires in order for it to be sued there.” In his view, “we should not stand back and let the requirements of the statute be eroded by the details of what an employee stores in his or her home.” He noted that judicial efficiency counsels against allowing cases to be tried in venues not permitted by the statute only to be retried in a proper venue. Judge Lourie reasoned that the circumstances relied on by the district court, including job advertisement and storage of product and equipment in the venue, were not meaningfully different from those of Celgene v. Mylan Pharms (Fed. Cir, 2021), where venue was deemed improper. He noted that “[t]he [...]

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Not “Use It or Lose It”: Even if Unexercised, Director’s Authority over Institution Decisions Remains

by Christopher M. Bruno | Aug 25, 2022 | Patents

The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit denied mandamus relief, finding that a party is not entitled to petition the director for review of a Patent Trial & Appeal Board (Board) decision denying institution of an inter partes review (IPR) or post-grant review (PGR) proceeding. This ruling reflects the Court’s ongoing consideration of the Supreme Court’s decision in United States v. Arthrex, Inc., which held that Board judges cannot constitutionally render final decisions in IPRs without US Patent & Trademark Office (PTO) Director oversight. Click here for our discussion of the case on remand, for which the Federal Circuit just denied en banc rehearing. In re Palo Alto Networks, Inc., Case No. 22-145 (Fed. Cir. Aug. 16, 2022) (Dyk, Chen, JJ.) (Reyna, J., concurring).

After being sued by Centripetal Systems for patent infringement, Palo Alto Networks filed petitions for IPR and PGR of some of the asserted patents. The Board denied institution, and Palo Alto Networks filed requests for Director rehearing. Although the PTO acknowledged receipt of the request, it informed Palo Alto Networks that the Director was not considering requests for rehearing of institution decisions “at this time.” Thereafter, Palo Alto Networks sought a writ of mandamus from the Federal Circuit. Between the request for mandamus and the Court’s decision, the PTO issued guidance explaining that although the PTO was not considering requests for rehearing, “the Director has always retained and continues to retain the authority to review such decisions sua sponte after issuance (at the Director’s discretion),” and indeed, exercised its authority to initiate sua sponte review since.

The Federal Circuit rejected Palo Alto Networks’ claim that the Director’s refusal to consider petitions for rehearing of institution decisions amounted to an abdication of authority prohibited by the Appointments Clause. Even assuming that institution decisions were “final decisions on how to exercise executive power” implicating the Appointments Clause, the Court found that the Director maintains statutory and regulatory authority to review institution decisions (unlike in Arthrex), and that the Board renders such decisions only based on the Director’s delegation of authority (also unlike Arthrex). Accordingly, the structural authority maintained by the Director is sufficient, even if such authority goes unexercised, according to the Court.

Writing separately, Judge Reyna agreed that no Appointments Clause violation had occurred but on different grounds. Although Judge Reyna noted that a categorical rejection of requests for rehearing by the Director might raise constitutional concerns, he concluded that mandamus was inappropriate for several reasons. First, the Director’s caveat that she refused to accept requests “at this time” did not constitute a categorical refusal but rather an exercise of discretion. Second, the Director’s invocation of her sua sponte authority to review belied a lack of exercise of discretion. The Director did in fact exercise sua sponte authority to consider Palo Alto Networks’ request, even though briefing in the Federal Circuit was pending, and thus a writ of mandamus was inappropriate.

Venue Manipulation Obviates Geographically Bounded Claims in Venue Analysis

by Paul Devinsky | Jul 8, 2021 | Patents

The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued a rare grant of two mandamus petitions directing the US District Court for the Western District of Texas to transfer the underlying patent infringement actions to the US District Court for the Northern District of California pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1404(a). In re: Samsung Elecs. Co., Ltd., Case Nos. 21-139, -140 (Fed. Cir. June 30, 2021) (Dyk, J.)

Ikorongo Technology owned four patents directed to functionalities allegedly performed by applications run on the accused mobile products sold by Samsung and LG. Ikorongo Technology assigned to Ikorongo Texas—an entity formed only weeks before—exclusive rights to sue for infringement of those patents within specified parts of the state of Texas, including certain counties in the Western District of Texas, while retaining the rights to the patents in the rest of the United States.

Ten days later, Ikorongo Texas sued Samsung and LG in the Western District of Texas. Although Ikorongo Texas claimed to be unrelated to Ikorongo Technology, the operative complaints indicated that the same five individuals owned both Ikorongo Texas and Ikorongo Technology, and that both entities shared office space in North Carolina.

The day after filing the initial complaints, Ikorongo Texas and Ikorongo Technology filed first amended complaints, this time naming both Ikorongo Technology and Ikorongo Texas as co-plaintiffs, noting that together Ikorongo Texas and Ikorongo Technology owned the entire right, title and interest in the asserted patents, including the right to sue for past, present and future damages throughout the United States and the world.

Samsung and LG separately moved under 28 U.S.C. § 1404(a) to transfer the suits to the Northern District of California, arguing that “three of the five accused third-party applications were developed in Northern California, where those third parties conduct significant business activities and no application was developed or researched in Western Texas.” Samsung and LG also argued that potential witnesses and sources of proof were located in the Northern District of California.

The district court first concluded that Samsung and LG failed to establish § 1404(a)’s threshold requirement that the complaints “might have been brought” in the Northern District of California. Because Ikorongo Texas’s rights under the asserted patents were limited to the state of Texas and could not have been infringed in the Northern District of California, the district court held that venue over the entirety of the actions was improper under § 1400(b), which governs venue in patent infringement cases. Alternatively, the district court analyzed the traditional public- and private-interest factors, finding that defendants had not met their burden to show cause for transfer. Samsung filed for mandamus to the Federal Circuit.

The Federal Circuit found that the district court erroneously disregarded Ikorongo Technology and Ikorongo Texas’s attempts to manipulate venue when analyzing venue under § 1404(b). While no act of infringement of Ikorongo Texas’s geographically bounded rights took place in the Northern District of California, the Federal Circuit determined that “the presence of Ikorongo Texas is plainly recent, ephemeral, and [...]

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First-to-File Rule Requires That Action Could Have Been Brought in Transferee Forum

by Paul Devinsky | Mar 11, 2021 | Patents

After issuing a rare grant of a mandamus petition directing a district court to stay proceedings until ruling on a pending motion to transfer, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit denied a subsequent mandamus petition to compel transfer after that district court denied the transfer. In re SK hynix Inc., Case No. 21-114 (Fed. Cir. Feb. 25, 2021) (Taranto, J.) (non-precedential). The Federal Circuit found that the doctrine of forum non conveniens and the first-to-file rule did not establish a basis for transfer because the action could not have initially been brought in the transferee forum and the patentee’s prior filings in that forum did not give consent for subsequently filed actions.

Netlist and SK hynix are competitors in the memory semiconductor space. Netlist sued SK hynix for patent infringement in the US District Court for the Western District of Texas. SK hynix moved to transfer the case to the US District Court for the Central District of California. With no ruling after eight months (while the case continued to move forward), SK hynix sought mandamus from the Federal Circuit to compel the district court to transfer the case. The Federal Circuit declined to transfer the case and instead stayed the district court proceedings until the district court ruled on the transfer motion. The district court then denied the transfer motion, rejecting SK hynix’s arguments that the doctrine of forum non conveniens and the first-to-file rule required transfer to the Central District of California. The district court also advanced the Markman hearing and trial dates. SK hynix again sought mandamus from the Federal Circuit to compel transfer and requested a stay of the district court proceedings because of the advanced Markman and trial dates.

Applying Fifth Circuit law, the Federal Circuit denied the mandamus petition, concluding that SK hynix had not shown that the district court clearly abused its discretion in denying the transfer motion. On the forum non conveniens issue, the Court found no clear abuse in the district court’s determination that SK hynix did not meet the threshold conditions for transfer under 28 USC § 1404(a), namely that the action “might have been brought” in the Central District of California or that, in the alternative, all the parties had consented to that venue for the action. As to the “might have been brought” inquiry, the Court found that the district court properly focused on whether the action might have been brought against SK hynix America, a domestic entity subject to the venue requirements of 28 USC § 1404(b) and headquartered in the Northern District of California, rather than SK hynix, a foreign entity not subject to the same venue requirements. The Court also found that SK hynix did not differentiate between the foreign and domestic SK hynix entities in its transfer motion. This was not an action that might have been brought against SK hynix in the Central District of California because SK hynix America lacked sufficient presence there to confer venue under [...]

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Eight-Month Delay on Transfer Motion Ruling Is “Egregious,” Warrants Stay

by Paul Devinsky | Feb 11, 2021 | Patents

The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued a rare grant of a mandamus petition directing a district court to stay proceedings until ruling on a pending motion to transfer, stating that the district court’s eight-month delay in ruling on the motion while allowing substantive issues to proceed “amounted to egregious delay and blatant disregard for precedent.” In re SK hynix Inc., Case No. 21-113 (Fed. Cir. Feb. 1, 2021) (Moore, J.) (non-precedential). The district court denied the transfer request the following day, and the petitioner asked the Federal Circuit to again stay the proceedings until it completed briefing on a new mandamus petition to compel transfer, which the Federal Circuit denied without prejudice. In re SK hynix Inc., Case No. 21-113 (Fed. Cir. Feb. 3, 2021).

Netlist and SK hynix are competitors in the memory semiconductor space. Netlist sued SK hynix for patent infringement in the US District Court for the Western District of Texas. SK hynix moved to transfer the case to the US District Court for the Central District of California. The parties completed briefing on the transfer motion in May 2020. The district court ordered the parties to engage in extensive discovery and scheduled a Markman hearing for March 2021. On January 6, 2021, after SK hynix moved to stay proceedings pending the motion to transfer, the district court instructed the parties to proceed with all deadlines while jurisdictional issues were resolved in parallel. SK hynix then filed the mandamus petition seeking to direct the district court to transfer the case, or alternatively, to rule on SK hynix’s pending motion to transfer. The district court soon issued an order setting a hearing on the transfer motion for February 2, 2021.

On February 1, 2021, the Federal Circuit granted the mandamus petition and directed the district court to stay all proceedings concerning the substantive issues in the case, including discovery, until the district court issued a ruling on the transfer motion. In its Order, the Court recognized that mandamus may be used to correct an “arbitrary refusal to act” by a district court on a transfer request. Although a district court has discretion in handling its docket, a motion to transfer “should unquestionably take top priority.” The Court characterized the district court’s handling of the transfer motion as amounting to “egregious delay and blatant disregard for precedent,” finding that the motion “lingered unnecessarily on the docket” while the parties were instructed to proceed with the merits of the case.

The next day, the district court issued an order denying SK hynix’s transfer request. The district court’s order also moved up the trial date from December 6, 2021, to July 6, 2021, and the Markman hearing from March 19, 2021, to March 1, 2021. SK hynix immediately notified the Federal Circuit of the denial and its intention to file a new mandamus petition to compel transfer. In the interim, SK hynix requested that the Federal Circuit extend the stay of the district court proceedings until briefing [...]

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