Judge Albright defies Fed Circ to move Intel suit back to Waco
A patent dispute between Intel and VLSI Technology will now be heard in Waco, Texas, after US District Judge Alan Albright decided that the case should be moved from Austin.
Albright argued in an order handed down on December 31 that because the “Austin courthouse is closed, the case can only move forward in the Waco courthouse in the near future”, despite opposition from Intel that was backed by the Federal Circuit.
While the trial has been set for early this year, the federal courthouse in Austin remains shut due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
In April 2019, VLSI sued Intel at the US District Court for the Western District of Texas in Waco, alleging that the technology company had infringed its patent, US number 7,292,485 which covers data processing system technology.
Judge Albright transferred the suit to the Austin division of the Western District of Texas in October 2019, on the basis that the venue was a more convenient venue to hear the trial at the time.
But after pandemic-related closures in Austin, the judge decided to move the trial to Waco on November 20. Intel petitioned the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit for a writ of mandamus asking it to request that the district court vacate the order to transfer the case.
On December 2, the Federal Circuit held that Albright wasn’t authorised to transfer the trial and that the decision amounted to “a clear abuse of discretion”.
The Federal Circuit also agreed with Intel’s argument that moving the trial from Austin back to Waco would be “fundamentally inconsistent”.
According to the court, Albright needed to explain why the entire case should be transferred back to Waco, with a particular focus on the cited “reasons of convenience” that led to the original transfer of the case to Austin in 2019. “The district court’s order failed to perform this analysis,” the Federal Circuit noted.
But Albright insisted last week that the move was necessary, citing “administrative difficulties flowing from court congestion” if the case remained in Austin.
In his order, Abright noted: “Under Fifth Circuit law, this court retains discretion to retransfer an action back to the original district where it was filed when unanticipatable post-transfer events frustrate the original purpose for transfer.”
He added that the delay associated with holding the trial in Austin is not the “garden variety” kind and that the challenges posed by the pandemic presented one of those “rare and special circumstances”.
The Western District of Texas’ Waco Division has gained notoriety in US legal circles as a patent litigation hot spot since Judge Albright joined the bench two years ago.
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