Apple, AT&T, Verizon Keep Patent Validity Suits in California

Apple Inc., AT&T Corp., and Verizon Wireless can keep their suits challenging the validity of two VoIP-Pal.com Inc. patents in the Northern District of California after the Federal Circuit declined to step in.

VoIP-Pal filed a mandamus petition asking the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit to order the lower court to apply the first-to-file rule and send the suits to the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, where it had filed related suits.

The Federal Circuit denied the petition in a nonprecedential order. “We see no error that is mandamus-worthy in ...