Google LLC’s motion to transfer was denied in the Western District of Texas yesterday in an ongoing lawsuit in which the tech giant was accused of infringing the patents of Jenam Tech, LLC. Google wanted to transfer the case to the Northern District of California, arguing that it was a more convenient venue.
On August 11, 2020, Jenam Tech accused Google of knowingly infringing upon their patents known as “Methods, Systems, and Computer Program Products for Sharing Information for Detecting an Idle TCP Connection” through its use of “the QUIC protocol present in various devices that Google develops and sells.” Then, on August 14, Google countered with a Motion to Transfer to the Northern District of California claiming that it was “clearly more convenient” and asserting that “there [is] no Google employee responsible for Google’s QUIC protocol anywhere in the state of Texas.”
In response to this, the plaintiff filed a response arguing that “Google did not meet its burden of proving that the NDCA is a clearly more convenient venue than the WDTX.” The court noted that “Google has failed to meet its evidentiary burden to show that the location of any electronic sources of proof would weigh in favor of transfer” and therefore the Court was not persuaded that “the location of any physical documents would weigh in favor of transfer.”
The court then agreed with the plaintiffs that it would be more convenient for physical documents to be brought to the Western District of Texas, rather than be transferred to California. The plaintiffs argued that the patent holder, Robert Paul Morris, would much rather come to Waco than northern California, and the court ruled that this argued against transfer. Finally, the court stated that transferring the case would add to court congestion and would delay a ruling even further.
The plaintiffs are represented by Devlin Law Firm LLC.
The defendants are represented by Potter Minton, PC.
