Sun Notes That Both It And NetApp Are In California... So Why Is The Patent Lawsuit In East Texas?

from the ah,-the-lure-of-east-texas dept

Tue, Oct 30th 2007 1:01pm — Mike Masnick

The latest news in the patent dispute between Sun and Network Appliance is that Sun is trying to move the case to California. NetApp filed the lawsuit in east Texas, a favorite location for patent holders, since the judges there are known for fast trials that almost always end with the patent holder coming out on top. Even if companies have no real presence in east Texas, they figure out how to get something resembling a presence there in order to file the lawsuit there. Amusingly, patent reform in the early 80s was designed to stop this type of jurisdiction shopping at the appeals court level, but all it seems to have done was push it down to the district court level. In trying to move the case, Sun points out that both it and NetApp have headquarters approximately 10 miles away from each other in California -- and there seems to be no reason whatsoever to have the case filed in east Texas unless you were jurisdiction shopping. There's been some talk lately suggesting that the folks in east Texas are getting a little annoyed at their reputation for being so friendly for patent holders, so hopefully they'll agree that this case really belongs in California.

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Filed Under: east texas, patents
Companies: network appliances, sun

17 Comments

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TheDock22, 30 Oct 2007 @ 1:32pm

Finally something that make sense.
It will be interesting to see if Sun gets their request granted. This does say a lot about NetApp though.
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pandlcg, 30 Oct 2007 @ 2:21pm

Nice
Be sure to keep us updated on this....it would be nice if this type of change finally started happening.
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Alex Hagen, 30 Oct 2007 @ 2:50pm

Texas legal system sucks? What a shocker.
Really, with stories like the guy executed because the court wouldn't stay open for 20 minutes past the 5:00 closing time, upholding laws to make homosexuality and sex toys illegal, and killing countless innocent people on their assembly line death row, including killing people that even they admit didn't commit the crime, can anyone be surprised that their civil courts suck too? And that's just the recent stuff, Texas has a long history of corruption and stupidity in their judiciary, politics, and, for that matter, people. Can we give them back to Mexico?
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- Logan, 30 Oct 2007 @ 4:06pm
  
  Re: Texas legal system sucks? What a shocker.
  If they hadn't won thier own independance and then joined the US voluntarily than I guess we could. They would probably want CA back at the same time. And Texas did kind of encompass most of new mexico and Colorado when it joined the US. Maybe giving mexico back all that land would just be a retarded suggestion.
  
  For all the reseearch you did on problems with Texas courts I am surprised that you missed that little piece of trivia.
  
  Regardless I think it would be a better solution to let
  companies only sue in the state where the suing commpanies have thier headquarters. So that say if my headquarters were in CA I would have to sue others in that state. That way if companies want to sue in Texas they would have to establish thier headquarters in that state.
  
  That way Texas would at least get the tax money from the suing companies.
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  - Alex Hagen, 30 Oct 2007 @ 4:50pm
    
    Re: Re: Texas legal system sucks? What a shocker.
    "For all the reseearch you did on problems with Texas courts I am surprised that you missed that little piece of trivia."
    
    It's called a joke son, look into it.
    
    And I didn't do much research, this is all stuff from the last few months. If I did research I could have probably found 100 times this many cases of injustice, bigotry, stupidity, and bloodthirstiness coming out of Texas.
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- Ian Adams, 1 Nov 2007 @ 1:32am
  
  Re: Texas legal system sucks? What a shocker.
  1) The problem is not that a public office would not stay open past its posted hours; the problem is that it took 21 years to stick a needle in his arm in the first place.
  2) Wow, found guiltily of murder by a jury of his peers, sentenced to death and rightfully executed; where’s the problem with that?
  3) Now here we go, sentenced to death in 1997, scheduled for execution in 2007; we were really tracking up to that point (well other then the needless, wasted 10 years it took), and then it all goes painfully wrong, nothing like the law abiding citizens having to pay for this guy’s room and board for 40 years.
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Austin R. Range, 30 Oct 2007 @ 3:03pm

Texas has one interest to me
Beyond the looser gun laws in Texas (I enjoy target shooting and Illinois isn't gun friendly at all) I see no reason to live there. Texas is pretty good about living up to the stereotypical "foreign hating queer killer" (I mean really some stories talk about special militias for shooting Mexicans crossing the border).
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- boomhauer (profile), 30 Oct 2007 @ 4:12pm
  
  Re: Texas has one interest to me
  Austin, were you trying to list reasons to or not to live here?
  
  oh and yall already have given us to mexico. thanks for leaving the door open.
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Mr Skewed Logic, 30 Oct 2007 @ 3:58pm

It's All Texas' Fault
You all are so right, all of the US court system issues are Texas's fault! Moreover, the sheer population size of Texas guarantees that anything the reidents of Texas want, they get (especially the "foreign hating queer killers")! Right?!

...whazzat? California is bigger than Texas in size and population? And California has the same weirdos that Texas has too (especially along the US-Mexico border)?! California executes more people than Texas?! Crazy I tell you, just crazy. I hear Nevada lets its residents carry guns too; maybe we should bash them too while we're at it.

Yep, Texas definately made California evil too.

Blame Texas ya'll.
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- Alex Hagen, 30 Oct 2007 @ 4:46pm
  
  Re: It's All Texas' Fault
  "California executes more people than Texas?!"
  
  ...And this is the point at which his post departed from weird and rocketed off into batshit-insane lost all touch with reality.
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- Ron, 30 Oct 2007 @ 5:20pm
  
  Re: It's All Texas' Fault
  California is bigger than Texas in size and population? Not really in square miles. And they have bigger Bubbas there too. 2. Texas 268,601 sq. miles 3. California 158,869 sq. miles
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- Anonymous Coward, 30 Oct 2007 @ 5:48pm
  
  Re: It's All Texas' Fault
  Easy, there, Cletus. Nevada's got its own stereotype, and you don't want any of that cross-dressing showgirl gamblaholic craziness.
  
  Didn't your King George, former Texas governor, belligerently invade some country under false pretexts and accidentally kill a bunch of foreigners who posed no direct threat to his country? Hey, doesn't a foreigner govern California? You're not doing well vs California; try again vs .. Brasil?
  
  Like regime change, image change takes a softer hand to be more effective. And takes place at home.
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Max Powers at http://ConsumerFight.com, 30 Oct 2007 @ 4:20pm

Texas has it's good points
If you want to execute someone, Texas is the way to go. But this case obviously belongs in California.
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- Danny, 30 Oct 2007 @ 10:01pm
  
  Re: Texas has it's good points
  Now bear with me on this:
  
  Execution
  Frivolous lawsuits
  Execution
  Frivolous lawsuits
  
  Ruling that a lawsuit is frivolous + Execution = YES
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Charlie Potatoes, 30 Oct 2007 @ 6:27pm

Sticks and Stones:
W.T. Sherman once said that if he owned hell and he owned Texas, he would live in hell and rent Texas out. Still, half our (Texas) problems are caused by yankee carpet baggers coming down here, taking over our school districts, our courts and legal systems and voting in their own brand of Neo-Con right-wing christian evangelical zealot bull shit. The sad fact is that the whole country sucks and not just Texas. Bush is from Connecticut and it was in Florida that our election was stolen. So kiss my rebel ass, you belly- aching morons, and go sweep around your own back door.
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Anonymous Coward, 31 Oct 2007 @ 5:05am

There's been some talk lately suggesting that the folks in east Texas are getting a little annoyed at their reputation for being so friendly for patent holders

Perhaps if it were the courts that were the ones getting a little annoyed this might stop.
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Jorge, 31 Oct 2007 @ 1:00pm

Matter of Improper Jurisdiction
Sun's point is that East Texas is an inappropriate jurisdiction--neither company has any significant connection to East Texas--so the case should be moved to a different federal court. This fact is highly suggestive of forum shopping.

They're emphasizing the locations of the HQ's to influence the court to transfer jurisdiction to a NorCal federal district court.
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