In re TS Tech and In re Genentech do not Apply Where the Requested Venue is a Neighboring District

In denying defendant's motion to transfer venue, the court rejected defendant's argument that In re TS Tech USA Corp., 551 F.3d 1315 (Fed. Cir. 2008) and In re Genentech, 566 F.3d 1338 (Fed. Cir. 2009) applied to this case. "[T]hese are remarkable cases, for two reasons. First, they were initially filed in the Eastern District of Texas, a venue notorious for the opportunistic filing of patent infringement lawsuits. Second, the alternative venues in these cases . . . were sufficiently distant from the Eastern District . . . to offer substantial convenience gains. These cases certainly don’t stand for the rule that the Court must transfer a patent infringement case whose only connection to the venue in which it was filed is that the allegedly infringing goods are sold in that venue."

HP Hood LLC v. Stremicks Heritage Foods LLC, 3-09-cv-01663 (CASD March 10, 2010, Order) (Burns, J.)