Fresh From the Bench: Latest Federal Circuit Court Case

CASE OF THE WEEK

In re: Apple Inc., Appeal No. 2022-162 (Fed. Cir. Nov. 8, 2022)

In our Case of the Week, the Federal Circuit granted Apple’s petition for mandamus, directing the District Court for the Western District of Texas to vacate a scheduling order that would require Apple and counter-party Aire Technology Ltd. to complete fact discovery on the merits, and another six weeks of re-briefing on a motion to transfer venue filed by Apple, before the District Court would consider Apple’s transfer motion. This is but another in a long line of mandamus opinions directed at Judge Albright’s venue transfer practices in the Western District of Texas. For more on that subject, see our additional write-ups here.

In siding with Apple, the Federal Circuit agreed that the District Court’s scheduling order would waste the parties’ resources and the court’s resources, and ordered the District Court to postpone fact discovery and other substantive proceedings until it resolved Apple’s motion.

By Tyler Hall

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Edited by Nika Aldrich and Scott D. Eads, Schwabe, Williamson & Wyatt