{"id":1566,"date":"2017-05-22T11:43:10","date_gmt":"2017-05-22T15:43:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/?p=1566"},"modified":"2017-05-22T12:56:24","modified_gmt":"2017-05-22T16:56:24","slug":"supreme-courts-reaffirms-fourco-and-limits-where-corporations-can-be-sued-for-patent-infringement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/?p=1566","title":{"rendered":"Supreme Courts Reaffirms Fourco, and Limits Where Corporations Can Be Sued for Patent Infringement"},"content":{"rendered":"

In TC Heartland LLC v. Kraft Foods Group Brands LLC<\/em><\/a>, [16\u2013341] (May 22, 2017), the Supreme Court\u00a0reversed the Federal Circuit and held that for purposes of the patent venue statute (28 U.S.C. 1400(b)), a corporation only resides where it is incorporated.<\/p>\n

The Supreme Court looked back to its to its 1957 decision in\u00a0Fourco Glass Co. v. Transmirra Products Corp.<\/em>, 353 U.S. 222, 226 (1957), where it concluded that for purposes of \u00a71400(b) a domestic corporation \u201cresides\u201d only in its State of incorporation. \u00a0At the time, the Supreme Court rejected the argument that the broader definition of corporate \u201cresidence\u201d in the general venue statute (28 U. S. C. \u00a71391(c)) applied.<\/p>\n

The Court noted that\u00a0\u00a71400(b) has not been amended since Fourco<\/em>, although \u00a71391(c) has been amended. \u00a0While one amendment stated that \u00a71391(c) applies “for all venue purposes,” another amendment qualified\u00a0“[e]xcept as otherwise provided by law.” \u00a0The Supreme Court\u00a0concluded that the amendments to \u00a71391 did not modify the meaning of \u00a71400(b) as interpreted by Fourco, <\/em>and held that a domestic corporation \u201cresides\u201d only inits State of incorporation for purposes of the patent venue statute.<\/p>\n

This will certainly impact patent litigation in the Eastern District of Texas, because most patent defendants are not incorporated in Texas, and many do not have a “regular and established place of business” there.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This is probably a good thing. \u00a0It has been estimated that at much as 40% of patent cases are filed in the Eastern District of Texas, and that is not healthy for the patent system. \u00a0It is probably not a good thing for Marshall, Texas, which has enjoyed a patent litigation bonanza for many years.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In TC Heartland LLC v. Kraft Foods Group Brands LLC, [16\u2013341] (May 22, 2017), the Supreme Court\u00a0reversed the Federal Circuit and held that for purposes of the patent venue statute (28 U.S.C. 1400(b)), a corporation only resides where it is … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1566","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-litigation"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1566","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1566"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1566\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1570,"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1566\/revisions\/1570"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1566"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1566"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1566"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}