Google Loses Appeal Over Texas Court’s Blocked Patent Suit Move

Google LLC must litigate a patent infringement lawsuit brought by telecom startup Flypsi Inc. in Waco, Texas, rather than San Francisco, the Federal Circuit ruled Monday.

The panel found that West Texas Judge Alan D. Albright reasonably denied Google’s transfer motion based on the location of potential witnesses and employees of both companies, as well as other factors that tipped the balance toward the Lone Star State.

“Here, the district court considered the relevant factors and found, based on the record before it, that Google had failed to establish that the Northern District of California is ‘clearly more convenient,’” Judge Timothy B. Dyk wrote in the order. “We cannot say ‘that the facts and circumstances are without any basis for’ that conclusion.”

Flypsi Inc. sued the California tech giant in January 2022 over patents relating to a telephone network system. It alleged Google infringed the patents through its Google Voice application.

Albright batted down the transfer motion based on a determination that Waco and Silicon Valley were more or less equally convenient for key witnesses at the two companies: Six West Coast Google witnesses would be more inconvenienced having to travel to Waco, but three Flyp employees in North Texas and three more Google employees in Western Texas would have an easier time.

In its petition to the Federal Circuit, Google argued that Albright erred in that analysis by “improperly weighing Flyp’s employees,” who are located in the Dallas-Fort Worth area despite a lack of evidence that those potential witnesses would be useful in the case.

The Federal Circuit, however, noted that the district court acknowledged other relevant Texas factors including “that judicial economy considerations weigh against transfer because of the Western District’s familiarity with the asserted patents based on prior litigation; and that the Western District is likely to be faster in adjudicating the case.”

Judges Jimmie V. Reyna and Raymond T. Chen also sat on the panel.

Munger, Tolles & Olson LLP is representing Google. Flyp is represented by Winston & Strawn LLP.

The case is In re: Google LLC, Fed. Cir., No. 23-00112, petition denied 3/6/23.