mr chief justice and may it please the court the court in this case is presented with an a stark choice that choice is between upholding or destroying then your protections the congress provided in twenty eight u s c fourteen hundred b and that this court interpreted in that statute declared to exist in its four coke last decision and the correct choice submit is to adhere to this court's existing long established interpretation of section fourteen hundred b and to reject the new call for a new rigid revisionist interpretation that would render section fourteen hundred be nugatory in this case and in all but the most unusual cases i'd like to just open first with some undeniable points and for co glass this court made two holdings about four hundred b that control this case the first is this court interpreted section fourteen hundred b as a standalone the sole and exclusive provision governing venue strong statement we couldn't tell me what the court held in brunette was that then you legislation had since the beginning of the republic been extended only to united states domesticity persons and that the then existing thirty nine hundred one d of title twenty eight was not a venue rule at all but rather was a codification of a principle that dated back to seven hundred eighty nine that aliens were simply outside the scope of all venue laws so ground on which this court held in for co the fourteen under b was standalone precisely because its predecessor had applied to any person corporation or partnership and there was never any practical issue interpreted fourteen hundred b as in litigation involving limited partnerships and even unincorporated non person associations because the linchpin of fourteen hundred b and its predecessor was domiciled when you have a venue rule that keys to domi specifically distinguishes between a dishonest ciliary and a non domicile the area then the problems that the denver and rio grande case addressed and that respondent brings up as hypothetical problems simply didn't exist it's nowhere that in  response brief they don't cite a single real world example where there was any problem interpret in applying section one fourteen hundred b ever since the sperry against america in any on the provision  honor and identify it could very well be that there is one and that's a very good reason why when congress amended thirty nine hundred one in two thousand and eleven they put that broad exception language in well don't you suppose even for diversity purposes and cooperation of its domicile will be deemed to be resident in this district that district that district and that has been a feature of general venue law since one thousand nine hundred eighty eight the whole point here is that that that rule was urged upon this court in the for coke glass case the court considered statutory language that was not materially different in this respect from current thirty nine he won and held that fourteen hundred b when it says the judicial district where the e word resides in the statute was a statutory term and it had a very well established meaning at the time of the statutes and that meant and this court held one of the specific issues in this case is did the word resides in fo congress would have to do to reverse or decision and fork oh well there are many ways that it could be done and in two thousand and one the american law institute proposed that section fourteen hundred b repealed is there any way congress could do it without repeal in fourteen hundred is there any change that congress could make to thirty nine the one that would have that effect i could imagine that if instead of saying except as otherwise provided by law the statute said not withstanding any other provision of law this would govern that would be a way to do that but that would do it in other words you're argument in the end rests on that except provision it rest importantly on the provision makes this case an easier case than for coke glass was because at the time of fork a glass all you had was the general then you statute and the very specific tailored historic venue statute that had  been dating back to eight hundred ninety seven and so in that case the court used the standard tools of statutory construction and said you know the specific statute is not going to be swallowed up and rendered nugatory by the more general and it applied the kind of reasoning that the rads in our case did razzing are against two stross is a very very analogous case to this but now that congress has specifically provided not that thirty nine t one overrides fourteen hundred b but that thirty nine when you lose is support that t fall then you all then you and the prior statute said for venue purposes yes the word all was added respondent has not identified any venue purpose that was not covered by the original version of thirty nine one see that now is covered by thirty nine one c what we never had before two thousand and eleven was a statute that subordinated thirteen ninety one  other venue provisions and we encourage the court to read pages thirty one and thirty two respondents brief because you don't get up until it isn't until you get to page thirty one that respondent can even bring itself to address the exception clause which is so clearly fatal to their position i talk about all means all means all means small for the first thirty pages and then finally we get to page thirty and thirty one one and they say well they say well the accept language the accept language has nothing to do this is on page thirty two the except language in section thirty nine he won a has nothing to do with the definition in thirteen ninety one c quote those definitions do not govern venue unquote well that directly contradicts what they say on page eight of their brief which states quote the new section thirteen ninety one c now governs for all venue purposes so the plain meaning of govern applies to thirty nine one c by their own characterization they're the ones who are saying that thirty nine t want c governs venue in this case which is what they say on page eight and then they try to do this acrobatic maneuver to escape the exceptions clause by saying it doesn't govern well as we say in our reply brief the plain meaning of govern means that thirty nine he once he is part of the sections that in the structure of thirteen ninety one is subordinated to the exception language so that the court doesn't need to do anything here except say that for co's interpretation of fourteen hundred b which under kimb vs marvell and statutory precedence of this course it is much a part of that statute as the words originally were that that is part of the law that everyone agrees provides for in you otherwise than what the respondent is arguing for the respondent is arguing that fourteen hundred b should now be given an artificial meaning imported from thirteen ninety one c that is the exact argument that the respondent made in the  petitioner in for co was a west virginia corporation who was alleged to reside in the southern district of new york when it didn't actually reside because the argument was it's deemed fictitiously to reside in new york under thirty nine and the court said in the context of fourteen hundred b which distinguishes between resident and nonresident defendants you can't import that synthetic fictitious definition of resides without destroying both the text of the statute and completely defeating its purpose for three hundred b was in the act to restrict where patent cases could be filed and what we've seen in the federal excerpts it's experiments since one nine hundred ninety is professors brief noted that there's a single judge in the united states that has one quarter of all patent cases in the united states on his docket this is a situation that cries out for nothing more th this case is is is usually when we say something when we issue a decision we can be pretty confident that congress is acting against the backdrop of that that decision but i think that that would be an odd thing to say in this case given that for thirty years the federal circuit has been ignoring our decision and the law has effectively been otherwise and then the question is well what is the backdrop against which congress has legislated it seems actually that if if i were a congressman i think that the practical backdrop against which i'm led to legislate in it's not for co it is instead the federal circuit's decision in the holding which is the decision that the practice has conformed to well  i can tell the court from someone who does practice that not everyone ever acceded to be e holding and i think if you look at what actually happened in the twenty eleven act it seems to me that and eleven congress took steps that indicated that they didn't get the memo that this court's decision in for coke glass was a novelty and that and that its disregard by lower courts had somehow become the law of the land first a situation in which an enormous extreme controversy the imbalance in federal patent litigation that goes to a very small number of dick checks it was an odd thing for congress to have repealed the very grab hold that the federal circuit had seized on to justify its results so i would argue that the legislation that congress passed far from ratifying that holding very intentionally abrogated it not only that in september three months before the tw act was passed congress amended the america invents act to provide for a new restriction on what could be deemed a regular and established place of business under fourteen hundred b section eight hundred c of the a i a says that an automated tell machine an a t m shall not be deemed a regular and established place of business and i suppose the respondent would say that that that provision was not inserted at the behest of new york money center banks that that provision was put in at the behest of individuals who didn't even form an are a corporation so that they would enjoy the protection alone wasn't that statute before the fourteen hundred was and it was i mean that case that that that amendment was done in september of two thousand and eleven by the same congress three months before congress did klein to accept the american law i don't quite see two things one you can comment on or not with these a mickey briefs and they're filled with this thing about a texas district which i think has too many cases what's that got to do with this as far as i can see you propose to decide what's good or bad maybe you'd lose but i don't know whether that's a good bad or indifferent ok but is there some relevance to it and the second thing that would like to know you're not a corporation since you're not a corporation why do we have this case here deciding what are we supposed to do we don't normally decide cases because mr smith would like us to decide a case involving a corporation he's not a corporation and nor you so what do we do well let me respond in two ways first of all from from the petitioners point of view the relevance of litigation behaviors in the united patent infringement case filings and other case filings in other areas of law and that and we do that if you want as far as i might be other people are interested in that but i really feel i need an answer to my second question  you remind me what the that is you're asking us to decide where venue is proper for a corporation and you are not a corporation therefore on what basis are we supposed to decide that that's not a correct statement of person including a person in doing a partnership including an unincorporated it's a partnership the predecessor statute to fourteen hundred b specifically said partnership so this was never a problem for patent cases it was always that all defendants all types of defendants were covered by the american railroads that had no into the status at all and just learned hand in that case held which had been a rule applied across the board in patent cases without problem that for a non person association was a non person we look to the  we treat the inhabitants as being where the principal place of business is located but to reiterate the statute is always applied to unincorporated areas the patent and statute has and the respondent has not pointed to a single real world where does this court has looked to state law to determine where the residence of a juristic person created by a state is located and so if it was a state which they would count the principal place of business is well it well some states might do that but the states always require that the domicile to be in the state so in this case in this case it's a very straightforward case because the the the public office that is its legal under indiana law is in indianapolis but it is in indiana it is an indiana domicile question under any question under under anybody's interpretation so unless there is some fictitious meaning not much more to say about that there's one other point that i'd like to bring up and that is that fourteen hundred b was and acted together with a federal service a process statute found today in twenty eight us six u s c sixty ninety four and it authorizes services the process and patent cases that are commenced in a district where the defendant is not a resident but has a regular and established place of business and there is another demonstration that in this context resident means dhamma sile and federal law specifically provides for nationwide service of process on nonresident defendants so the key point i'd just like to leave you with is for more than one hundred years a patent venue has been a function of the as i was reading the brief sometimes we have accidental theme days at the supreme court so today's accidental theme is when thirty years of practice goes against you what happens i heard justice souter say something like that in the s r case you know the teachings of gesture motivation test has been around so long that at some point the mistake becomes the law and this court has again and again and again stood up for its authority to declare what the law is on issues of patent law there's actually a precedent and re before us and you are asking us to say that venue in the patent infringement case oney where the entity is in clark way to comparable to that and you have disagree because what fourteen hundred b does is it provides a different way to define venue for nonresident defendants fourteen hundred b isn't restricted just to the district where the defendant is domicile four hundred b provides the expansive regime the thirty nine hundred one c does you know any place where you know someone could constitutionally summon you into court fourteen hundred b says you have to have a regular and established place of business and commit an act of infringement now that's a choice the congress may that is a different venue prescription than what there are two hundred ninety one c provides and there's very good reasons i could state here and as someone who tries patent cases i could tell you there's a reason why not pat litigation is has characteristics that make it much more susceptible to the kind of forum shopping that some of the have done because the injuries that issue in patent litigations don't grow out of some tangible you know a  i know as long as you have a minute maybe you could indulge me and trace me through this with a corporation i think fourteen hundred says resides where the defendant resides erect but then that incorporated section forty eight and section forty eight said where the defendant is in and have that wrecked and now inhabitant how do we know that means where the corporation is incorporated or something what does that mean in the case of a crowd do we know that that that that word inhabitant quoting the revisers notes words in subsection b where the defendant resides were substituted for of which the defendant is an inhabitant because the words inhabitant and resident as respects venue are synonymous and then there's this apparent that it will we pause here to observe that this treatment and the express reason for it seems to negative any intention to make corporations suable and pen infringement cases where they are merely doing business it says in respect of corporations it means the state of incorporation only correct but you're not in the corporation so i'm back to my first question the the treatment of domiciles of of chartered entities has is that is a matter of public record so it's an easy thing to find out thank you counsel mr jay mr chief justice and they please the court if i may have like to offer a different theme for today and that we definitions rather than the thirty year point that justice kagan posited congress has written a definition of residence that applies for all venue purposes  the yes there's a difference between for venue purposes and for all different purposes and for venue under this chapter but this is something fairly significant in the area of patent law and i would have thought that if congress were trying to make significant change there be a lot more evidence of that other than just changing the particular nuances of the words well of course mr chief justice it isn't here a change from for venue purposes just a for all venue purposes there are i think four changes in between the four co text and the text today and in between you had the statue construed in the holdings which said for purposes of venue under this chapter but there's no real evidence of any including in the nuances you talk about of such a significant change i mean we can't get we can't get rid of this issue i mean we tried in stone knight in then in for co it's a sort of keeps coming up and i would have thought when you have well i mean is are for code decision law or could the principles by which op interpret the statutes are still good law well then the definition that for co applied is no longer the controlling definition of residence ok well it is the current statute says except as otherwise provided by law and i would have thought that excluded overturning the four code decision so i don't think so your honor i think that the function that except as otherwise provided by a law i like to illustrate what work that's doing in the statute and i'd like to explain why nothing in fact otherwise provides by law in fourteen hundred b so if you look at the appendix to the read brief pages three to four a and then again five eight to six say these are the old statutes so this is the eighty eight version then actually the fifty two version now from the forty eight record of occasion except as otherwise provided by law has been in the statute since the forty eight re codification where was it it was in the general venue provision and it was in the diversity venue provision a and b hundred one so that's right in the carry over on through the end and then later is going to be it's going to be moot at the beginning that's right is so now that there isn't there aren't separate statutes anymore for general venue diversity venue and local action venue which was thirty nine hundred two all of that's now in thirteen ninety one b and this except as otherwise provided by law language which has always been there has now been put in thirty nine t one egg and if you look at why the american law institute drafted it just that way because it's just the way that the a o i drafted it that congress adopted you will see that i both from the report and also from page eighteen of the house report that the purposes of this except as otherwise provided by a long line which is to quote follow current law it wasn't intending to overrule ve holding it all now my friend the other side no but i mean it wasn't intended to overrule the holding but i suspect it wasn't intended to overrule for code all either and for co is a decision of this court it certainly is your honor but i do think that for co is based on two things and those things are no longer the case in the statute let me walk through that so for co is based on two things number one the fact that fourteen hundred was ricotta fide in the one hundred forty eight revision of the judicial code and if there isn't a change specified in the revisers notes the court said it will not read that change in even though ordinarily when congress makes a change in language this court's presumption is the opposite the court's presumption is that congress means to do something by its change not in every kind of occasion context now we don't have the ricotta vacation context anymore the other thing is the specific and the general can in this court said that thirteen ninety one c as it then existed was clearly a general corporation venue statu and so it was it provided where a corporation could be sued it doesn't do that anymore thirty nine one c is now a purely definitional provision and it was adopted specifically to clear up a number of the nagging problems that the members of the court have been asking my friend about including where do you sue an artificial entity that is not a corporation and where does it reside just as briar the answer to your question is in this this court's decision in denver and rio grande from nine hundred sixty seven now my friend says well that's a general venue case but i think the salient point is that the court said in that case the fear is no there was no settled construction of the law on where an unincorporated association resides in nine hundred forty eight and there is none yet to raise the significance of the fact that it was an unincorporated association in your brief in opposition no your honor because we don't think that it matters because of the definition now applies to all business entities corporations analyses the devil it seems on the new you didn't raise it in your brief in opposition and yet you it takes look if you if you are right you win that's the end of the case you're wrong then you have another point point and that is that for code doesn't apply really to unincorporated association so why isn't the right thing to do for us to decide the issue if you win that see end of it and if you lose you send it back and we say to the lower court if you haven't forfeited the point maybe you could raise it and argued is that the correct way to handle is if you lose i agree with what your honor just said but and with the question about what to do with elsie's and what to do with defendants who don't reside in the united states this goes to justice sotomayor is question is a big part of why congress why the l i working with the judicial conference committee on federal state jurisdiction proposed a statute that would resolve these ambiguities in the naked word resides or resident but wherever they rely upon it in your briefs a lot and you rely on it here and the and i wanted to get rid of fourteen hundred and congress didn't do that that's right but it's it's proposal to clear up the ambiguity using the word resident for resides for all the new purposes  explained in its report at wage one eighty eight and one eighty nine and then congress then in the house reported page twenty echoed it almost exactly the reason to the work that is the work that the words for all venue purposes do is to provide that these definitions shall apply not just to the general venue statute but to all venue statutes general or special and the house report says the same thing on page twenty even though of course as you said the house didn't repeal fourteen hundred and we're not saying that fourteen in a row or a special crew there are lots of different ones but did it say if you pass this don't worry about getting rid of fourteen hundred because this gets rid of it i mean did they say anything like that at all no because fourteen hundred still serves a function i mean getting rid of fork zero zero of well that's it that's you didn't say anything i mean when they did say this was years ago this said don't worry about the repealing fourteen hundred if you pass this you will be rid of the supreme court's interpretation and for co or anything like that what it said your honor is that the federal circuit's decision in v holding was to call that a partial palliative it said that the work needed to be finished because the holding addressed corporations based on the statute as it then corporate defendants based on the statute as it then was what that the work needed to be carried forward in the definition for number one corporate plaintiffs where they reside and number two unincorporated defendants where they reside and that's what this cross cutting all purpose definition was intended to do but for the i think it's important to note that an argue for three hundred b does do work it is the venue statute so you have to show either that the defendant reside and all defendants reside there or all defendants are subject to suit there under the under the second half that's different from what the general venue statute provides which for example can base venue on the would still would be more likely to trigger the second half of the statute but in deciding what is the proper venue the first thing you do is you look at which is the right venue statute in this case it's not the general venue statute thirty nine b it is the special venue statute of patent cases four hundred b now that doesn't define resides resides is defined for all the new purposes somewhere else it's in thirteen ninety one c and so for all the new purposes that's the definition you apply now by fourteen hundred b the second part of it by thirteen ninety one there's no i you keep saying there's work for this but we're so the second half and i agree it does not have much work left to do except in cases where the defendants an individual so i think that that by itself means that the second half is not surplus now but let me answer that you would have specific jurisdiction if the person committed an a of infringement and has regular established place of business and presumably they are doing business in the by doing the act of infringement but the for an individual defendant justice sotomayor the definition isn't based on personal y says that this the problems we've raised are hypothetical problems this court has six patent cases this term four of them have l l c defendants in them and we think that understanding where an l l c resides is actually a very important point l l c is we're basically a business entity that came into existence in about one hundred seventy nine and really have only taken off in the last twenty years applying the eight hundred ninety seven definition of inhabitant carried forward into fourteen hundred b without this definition doesn't give you that answer and we know that statutory answer in other words this difficulty is a reason why you should adopt our reading of the statute and not the other side's as for if you adopt the other side of difficulty again it's a difficulty you didn't point out to us at the jurisdictional stage i think there are the reasons to adopt our statutory interpretation or many the text the legislative history and the structural considerations and i think that they are all fair game here on the merits were not or were not urging you to dismiss the case as improvidently granted but i think that the practical difficulties with the other side's statutory interpretation we're not required to raise all of those in the brief in opposition in order for you to consider why you should adopt our meeting on the merits and it mr g can i just ask you and this is a clarification question and maybe i should know this but you have the original thirteen ninety one which was the subject for co then you have the nine hundred eighty eight amendment then you have the twenty seven amendment right is that the twenty eleven amendment do you think changed things or is it also the one thousand eighty eight amendment and if it's the twenty and eleven amendment exactly which words do you think changed them so it's both your honor i don't think you need to agree with me about the eighty eighth amendment but we do think that for corporate defendants it changed in one thousand nine hundred eight it did not change for non corporate defendants and because those weren't the words that congress used in two thousand and eleven we think that that there are four things and i think these are the four differences that i wanted to talk about with respect to fork oh we think that for all the new purposes does the work because that's what the purposes is broader consciously than for purposes of venue under this chapter because there are more than two hundred venue statutes that are outside chapter eighty seven and congress and the ale i wanted to pick up even hundred was within the chapter that's right the effect was exactly the same one and it wasn't because now it's no longer just corporate defendants the two thousand and eleven amendment adds to the definitions it provides for a domicile for individual defendants it expands the c two definition to cover other business entities besides corporations which wasn't done in the immediate amendment and it provides a rule that slightly tweaks what this court said in brunette it provides and what the rules should be for defendants who do not reside in the united states now my friends the other side say essentially aliens can be sued in any district and that's what the prior statute said but that's not what congress wanted the law to be any more congress wanted the law to be that a defendant that does not reside in the united states may be sued in any tourist district how do you in united states you apply see one and see two all those definitions tied together and i think that if if congress had wanted to dispense with dispense with burnett for patent cases and creates you know a d entirely different rules just for patent cases i think very it would have said so but instead it wanted to adopt a cross cutting definition third point the definition of venue in thirteen ninety we know if there's any doubt about what a venue purpose is you can look at the definition of the word venue and some statutes that might be considered venue statutes are excluded from that definition they're the ones that regulate the subject matter jurisdiction of a court and say that this court only this court you know let's say the district court for d c shall have jurisdiction to decide something that's one that it doesn't go where the law provides otherwise a special venue statute that provides that instead of the general so if you turn the page to weigh the here's the general venue statute venue in general so a special venue statute that provides that the basis for venue should be for example the plaintiff's residence instead of the defendant's residence that's an example of a special venue statute so the words a lot b doesn't apply because of the words in except as otherwise provided by the law that's exactly why congress put those words into a general venue statutes in one hundred forty eight why they're still there today so why if it governs be reasons number one i think the reason that it uses the word section is that previously there were two general venue sections somewhere in thirty nine hundred one and there were more for local actions and thirty nine one of the things that congress did in two thousand and eleven was get rid of thirty nine hundred two so that's why i think it wrote in this section shall govern the venue now what does it mean to govern venue what it means to govern venue is to provide on which bases venue  residents defendants residents personal principal place of business there are venue statutes the do each of those things fourteen hundred b is a special venue statute and it says defendants residents or the conjunctive definition in the second half so this is what provides this is what says look to fourteen hundred b and not to the general venue statute in a patent infringement case of course in a in another patent case where it's the alleged infringer bringing it declaratory judgment action saying that i want declaration that i don't infringe that does go under the general venue provision and there are a lots of declaratory judgment actions brought right now by the prospect of defendants that get to use the general venue provision they get to sue patent owners anywhere the patent owner is subject to personal jurisdiction and one virtue of our rule is that it creates greater harmony between these sort of declaratory judgment actions which are kind of rape where the defendant races into the court house to sue first and at infringement action brought by the patent owner under fourteen hundred b so who does it i hope that i've that i've answered your question about why this doesn't cover why this doesn't do the work but at the another part of that answer which i had promised to get back to the chief justice on is about why nothing provides otherwise by law in this case even if you don't agree with anything that i've said to this point and that is because for co interpreted the word residence in fourteen hundred b and that's absolutely true for it it gave it the same meaning that it had in all the venue statutes  hundred seven diversity venue general venue patent venue it just meant inhabitant and inhabitant had it did have a meaning for corporations it did have a meaning for individuals it didn't have a settled meaning for unincorporated associations but we can we can come back to that the point is that congress has now adopted and one thing that my friend said that i entirely agree with it's an artificial definition it is an artificial definition of residence but it did so because it wanted to eliminate nice distinctions about where in particular kinds of business entities reside using that term as it was used in one thousand nine hundred seven and it wanted to simplify the inquiry you're going to have to answer the personal jurisdiction question in all of these cases anyway so for corporate giving an additional venue inquiry about whether they where they are doing business or where they have a regular and established place of business or additional complications layered on top of that personal jurisdiction inquiry that you're going to have to do anyway that's why hundred eighty eight for general venue decided to make personal jurisdiction the touchstone for venue as well for corporate defendants and why the a ally working with a judicial conference committee and then congress decided to expand that to unincorporated associations for all the new purposes in two thousand and eleven it's simpler it's cross cutting it's not sort of a patent specific rule but it is the best rule and it's the rule that congress adopted think that if i understand your question is why do people say why are people suing in this court in texas and why was so many people suing in this court is that their team won the wonder is it something else well it's only thirteen ninety one in the sense that it's a permissible choice but i don't think that that is an answer to the question of why they choose that over all other permissible choices and i think if there are complaints about the way things are handled in east texas and my client craft has been a defendant in east texas and patent infringement cases as well if there are complaints they tend to be complaints that aren't venue style complaints in other words it's an inconvenient forum compared to where i am located they tend to be complaints about how the cases are managed how discovery takes place how motions practice is handled and so on and those complaints if they are valid would be valid even when venue is indisputable improper over a texas defendant there are problems that should be dealt with on their own terms rather than by letting anybody not from texas out of that district and leaving everyone else still in the district with for the practice is unchanged i don't understand that answer you're saying the problems would be there for texas corporations that actually reside in that district anyway so we shouldn't worry that twenty five percent of the nationwide cases are there i'm saying two things your honor number one i think the complaints about east texas are really about overcrowding and i'd like to answer that as my second point but that rather they are about the way that the cases are handled you know whether there'd be no one case or a thousand cases me talk about the overcrowding of the complaint is that it allows a kind of forum shopping right that it let's go down to texas where we can get the benefit of a certain set of rules i mean i think that the same criticism can be made of the r congress adopted for the general venue statute in one thousand nine hundred eighty eight or for that matter the fairly liberal rule that congress adopted for corporations nine hundred forty eight and patent cases number one don't have varying circuit law they have a single federal  court court and number two they don't have choice of law problems you know so that you can certainly have forum shopping problems under the general venue provision quite easily as well with you i don't think it's to do general just general jury verdict enter into this or is this something we should think about so i think that the empirics you know that there's a battle in the briefs about that i mean i think that at least one scholar has said that the outcomes are not significantly different in cases that go to trial we don't have a position on that we haven't crunch crunch the numbers ourselves but ultimately we think that with me that might be a perception by the by the by the bar who bring the bring these in might well be and i think and it certainly that is a that is the argument that's being made to congress and i think that when congress as you know takes up this issue as it has already been asked to do and it's already been considering at the committee level congress can do something that this court doesn't have the ability to do in this case and that is to modulate venue that in a way that's not binary in this case you're only have the two choices my friends on the other side say reside for corporate defendant just means the state of incorporation thats it what congress can do is create a definition that doesn't turn on the word resides at all or that adds more choices that could add principal place of business it can add where the plaintiff has done research on the invention that is patented those are in fact what the proposals look like none of the legislative proposals about patent venue in the last ten years that i've seen look anything like what the what my friends on the other side are proposing nobody likes the one place of residence rule they all at least offer a principal place of business and some plaintiffs centered venue and that is why the empirics say that if you adopt the rule that my friends on the other side are proposing you will shift more than half of all cases from the district where they now are in to other districts whereas if congress adopted its current the current version of its reform non practicing entity cases would largely move but operating company cases largely would not or is if you adopted heartlands rule operating company cases would wind up shifting and this get back to my point mr chief justice they would have to shift to places like delaware where lots of defendants are incorporated and if everybody were incorporated in delaware maybe that would be ok but because lots are incorporated in delaware and some are not you have kind of a dual problem you're going to have overcrowding in delaware and you're  venue ought to be you know no because it congress decided that it was going to for the purposes of residency was going to adopt a single definition across the board but but i lof it slightly because if that's so clear was this case here and  through i can't cut one way or the other with the pot that particular argument i mean you do think the patent holders are tremendously powerful group of people businesses all in the country and if they had been you can see why weren't they in congress so that's a congressional problem why weren't they there saying we have a problem here why don't you clarify it you're i don't think you can answer that question you can google you i'm sure you are big because i think because i think that the issue is not the definition of residence the issue is how do we come up with a different patent venue statute altogether and that is something that congress has been working on trying to come up with something more calibrated so that for example a research university would be able to bring suit in its home district because that's where it did the invention it's where the inventors lab is and so forth you know where they would want to be able to sue a defendant in its own principal place of business even if it doesn't commit relevant act of infringement there and in particular because you know the pat second half of the patent venue statute was interpreted in a way that requires everything to be conjunctive in other words all defendants have to have committed acts of infringement and have regular places of business there you have parents of city area problems you have problems when you sue on multiple patents patents which are infringed at different times like the process of making something and then the good that is made each of those could be different acts of infringement and you also have problems in pharmaceutical cases i think one aspect of patent litigation that is working pretty well is these pharmaceutical cases where a brand company sues all the generic companies that want to make a product that's a you know a facsimile of the brand product congress in section two ninety nine of the patent act recognize that those are an example of cases that really all ought to proceed in the same district there are an exception from the no consolidation rule that congress wrote in the america invents act so what's going to happen to those cases number one there is no active infringement yet because they are active infringement that kicks off the lawsuit is an artificial one and number two you won't be able to sue all those generics in the same district at all right now a dozen or even two dozen cases can all be brought in the ultimately we don't think that these practical problems are dispositive because we think the text and the legislative history and the reasons why the l i wanted to solve the problems that had come up with the previous versions of the undefined term residents cite you a page of legislative history for example but i think you may well have wanted to continue having a rule that for example requires all defendants to reside in the district of venue which is what fourteen hundred b now now provides whereas the general venue provision  has transactional venue it allows for venue where nobody resides and it also allows for a venue sometimes where the only one defendant resides but we think that congress could have gone through and sniffed out all of the venue provisions or portions of venue provisions that were left somewhat superfluid by its adoption of this broad definition of resides the a o i recognize that that would be a mammoth task but nevertheless congress decided to do it anyway and to do it this relatively easy way and i think you know the few of venue leaders and it seems to me your answer is quite proper as to fourteen hundred how does your answer apply to fourteen hundred b how does it apply in terms of work left to be done by the rest of the statute yet were you your explanation was that the they wanted to get rid of all of these distinctions but that doesn't and that makes sense so far as it is concerned for the understand how to present the way it wanted to go rid of the idea of different conceptions of residence under different statutes and different conceptions of residence that applied to different types of defendants you wanted to have all of that standardized now that might sometimes result in the word resides in a venue statute swallowing the rest to some degree i think you know this court next month is going to consider the feel of a new provision forty five u s c forty six i believe and that venue provision it's in the list in i think footnote eight of the house report in corp companies has not been a problem in the law for decades it has been settled there's a reason they didn't bring it up in their brief in opposition it was never an issue in the case and the place in the joint appendix i would direct the court's attention to is page twenty a which is the proof of service that they served in this case in which the defendant's counsel and delaware service stating that the nonresident defendants were served with a notice required by and identifying the that i believe that that provision and that argument is overstated for various reasons first of all to the extent that venue applies across the board of course it will apply to putative makers of generic throws as well the judicial panel on multi district litigation exists to provide for pretrial consolidation proceedings if that is appropriate many generic companies have waived any objection to venue by potentially by registering to do business in the places where the brand companies want to sue that was the holding in the court case in which this court denied certain january nine so it is a completely speculative to suggest that simply of holding what congress has seen fit to provide by way of across the board venue protection for patent litigation is necessarily going to prevent litigation over punitive generic drug manufacturers justice kagan correctly pointed out whose breath was no narrower then than it is now for venue purposes for all venue purposes it's exact there is no difference there what for co is so important is that it held that fourteen hundred b c is free standing it is not supplemented by thirty nine hundred one c so if we're looking at what fourteen hundred b c means you have a word that has been construed by this court that construction has never been overruled or changed by congress and the for coal and the patent venue statute is of sixty conception why because the structure of fourteen hundred b that specifically distinguishes between resident and nonresident descent defendants makes no sense unless the statute is given its original meaning you a defendant in the judicial district where his domicile issues are if you want to sue somewhere else you have to sue somewhere where there's both an act of infringement and regular established place of business that's what congress provided and and it's very revealing that hundred b itself because when it talks about actions for pattern infringement is talking about the civil action remedy provided by thirty five u s c section two eighty one so those are the only kind of actions that what you know to be applies to so if there's a problem with the way congress wrote the law that's just too bad that's not for a court to come in and overrule president in order to achieve a goal like that and i also heard conceded here that whatever might be the motivations for  that paper cited on page fifty two indicates that sixty eight percent of small and medium sized businesses will get venue relief if t c heartland wins this case thank you also faces submitted