Here is a report on recent news and commentary related to the Federal Circuit and its cases. Today’s report highlights Oracle’s brief to the Supreme Court in Google LLC v. Oracle America, Inc., an argument that eBay Inc. v. MercExchange, LLC should be overruled, and the Federal Circuit’s recent ruling in In re Google LLC that Google’s servers do not establish venue.
Joseph Tsidulko of CRN reported that in Google LLC v. Oracle America, Inc. “Oracle has submitted a written argument to the U.S. Supreme Court making the case that Google stole thousands of lines of copyrighted code, and with them, Oracle’s chances of competing in the smartphone market.” As explained by Tsidulko, Oracle’s brief “starts simply: ‘Google has a problem,'” and “goes on to say that Google ‘committed an egregious act of plagiarism and now needs to rewrite copyright law to justify it.'” (We previously reported on the Supreme Court’s grant of certiorari in this case as well as recent filings in the case, including Google’s opening brief. We will report on Oracle’s brief later this week. You can always find up-to-date links to Supreme Court filings on the case’s case page. This page automatically updates with each filing in the case.)
Gene Quinn from IPWatchDog commented on “why eBay v. MercExchange should, but won’t be overruled.” According to Quinn, “[o]verruling eBay and restoring the previous system for issuing injunctions in patent cases would instantly shift the balance of negotiating power back to even, which would give infringers incentive to take licenses and use means other than the court and the Patent Trial and Appeal Board processes to settle their disagreements with patent owners.” Quinn argues that, “[i]n eBay, the Supreme Court decided to throw out longstanding and well-established Federal Circuit jurisprudence and offered little or nothing in its place.”
At PatentlyO, Dennis Crouch reported on Thursday’s Federal Circuit ruling in In re Google LLC that “Google cannot be sued in E.D. Texas for patent infringement” because “the district is an improper venue.” According to Crouch, the Federal Circuit stated “that a regular-and-established-place-of-business must be a physical place located within the district” and that Google’s servers “are not a ‘place of business.’” (We also commented on the Federal Circuit’s decision.)