Google triumphs over Rockstar in venue ruling

Google will be relieved after the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit said its patent dispute with the Rockstar Consortium should be heard in California, not Texas.

Rockstar filed five complaints in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas last November, saying Google, Samsung and four other Android operators had infringed its patents.

The consortium, which is backed by technology companies including Apple and Microsoft, claimed seven patents had been infringed by the Android platform.

Google responded by filing a complaint in the US District Court for the Northern District of California, saying Rockstar “intends to harm” its Android platform and “disrupt relationships” with Android operators.

The search company also objected to the claims of patent infringement and argued that all seven Rockstar patents are invalid.

In response, Rockstar sought to dismiss the suit or transfer it from California, but in April this year the district court there denied that request.

This decision prompted Google and the other defendants to ask the Texan district court to stay the proceedings there or transfer them to California. They argued that continuing with Rockstar’s infringement actions would result in “wasteful and duplicative litigation”.

After the court in Texas rejected that plea, the defendants petitioned the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit to resolve the dispute.

The court found, in a ruling yesterday (October 9), that because the two proceedings involve substantially the same controversy, “it is clear that there was no need to proceed with the five Texas actions because the one California action may suffice”.

It ordered the Texan court to stay the cases there pending the outcome of the action in California.

The decision may come as a relief to Google, as the Eastern District of Texas is seen as a plaintiff-friendly court.

Last year, after conducting research in to US patent filings, James Pistorino, a partner at Perkins Coie, told WIPR that plaintiffs in the court can “directly impact the individual judge assigned to their case”.

Rockstar’s patents are linked to Canadian-based telecommunications company Nortel, which went bust in 2009 and auctioned a lucrative portfolio containing more than 6,000 patents. It was later sold in 2011 to Rockstar after the consortium defeated Google itself with a $4.5 billion bid.