Court Opinion

ID: 9556193
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-16 16:02:07.70453+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:41:53.673762
License: Public Domain

Case: 23-135    Document: 14     Page: 1    Filed: 08/16/2023

           NOTE: This order is nonprecedential.

   United States Court of Appeals
       for the Federal Circuit
                  ______________________

                   In re: APPLE INC.,
                         Petitioner
                  ______________________

                         2023-135
                  ______________________

    On Petition for Writ of Mandamus to the United States
District Court for the Western District of Texas in No. 6:22-
cv-00351-ADA, Judge Alan D. Albright.
                  ______________________

                      ON PETITION
                  ______________________

     Before CHEN, MAYER, and STOLL, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM.
                        ORDER
    Apple Inc. petitions for a writ of mandamus directing
the district court to vacate the order denying transfer and
to transfer the case from the United States District Court
for the Western District of Texas (“WDTX”) to the United
States District Court for the Northern District of California
(“NDCal”). For the reasons below, we deny the petition.
    Lionra Technologies Ltd. (“Lionra”) sued Apple in the
Waco Division of WDTX for patent infringement. Apple
moved to transfer pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1404(a). Follow-
ing the close of venue-related discovery, Lionra filed its
Case: 23-135    Document: 14      Page: 2    Filed: 08/16/2023

2                                            IN RE: APPLE INC.

opposition to Apple’s motion, relying, in part, on “three Ap-
ple employees that [Lionra] failed to identify during venue
discovery,” Appx 5. Apple filed its reply, challenging the
relevance of these, and other, Apple employees located in
WDTX. Separately, Apple moved to strike any argument
based on those late-disclosed employees, or, in the alterna-
tive, for additional time to investigate the relevance of
those individuals.
     The district court denied both motions. The court first
concluded that, although Lionra failed to timely disclose its
reliance on three of the WDTX-based Apple employees, it
was harmless; “Apple holds all the information about its
employees,” Appx 6, and it “could have spent the two weeks
between the response and reply investigating these em-
ployees, explain why the employees are not relevant based
on the information in their LinkedIn profiles, or request
leave to provide new information about the employees.”
Appx 7. Having denied Apple’s motion to strike, the dis-
trict court then considered those Apple employees in the
§ 1404(a) transfer analysis. Ultimately, the court con-
cluded that the willing witness factor weighed against
transfer while the compulsory process factor slightly
weighed in favor of transfer and the other factors were neu-
tral. On balance, the court concluded that Apple failed to
show that NDCal was a clearly more convenient forum.
    Apple then filed this petition, which we have exclusive
jurisdiction to review. 28 U.S.C. §§ 1295(a)(1), 1651(a); In
re Princo Corp., 478 F.3d 1345, 1351 (Fed. Cir. 2007). To
obtain the extraordinary remedy of a writ of mandamus,
Apple must show, inter alia, a clear and indisputable right
to relief. Cheney v. U.S. Dist. Ct. for D.C., 542 U.S. 367,
380–81 (2004). When assessing this element in the context
of § 1404(a) transfer disputes, we apply relevant regional
circuit law and review only for “a ‘clear’ abuse of discretion
such that refusing tranfer produced a ‘patently erroneous
result.’” In re TS Tech USA Corp., 551 F.3d 1315, 1319
(Fed. Cir. 2008) (quoting In re Volkswagen of Am., Inc., 545
Case: 23-135        Document: 14   Page: 3   Filed: 08/16/2023

IN RE: APPLE INC.                                           3

F.3d 304, 312 (5th Cir. 2008) (en banc)). Apple’s petition
has not made that showing.
     Apple’s primary challenge concerns the denial of its
motion to strike Lionra’s arguments relating to three of the
five WDTX Apple employees that were relied on by the dis-
trict court in denying transfer, asserting it was prohibited
from submitting evidence rebutting the relevance of those
individuals. But for this discovery dispute, Apple has not
shown that the district court clearly abused its discretion
in finding Lionra’s failure to timely disclose was “harm-
less.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 37(c)(1) (directing courts to consider
whether the failure was “substantially justified or is harm-
less”). Apple does not dispute that the district court con-
sidered the relevant factors. See Tex. A & M Rsch. Found.
v. Magna Transp., Inc., 338 F.3d 394, 402 (5th Cir. 2003).
And, in doing so, the district court reasonably found that
Apple had access to the three Apple employees at issue and
plausibly concluded that Apple had a meaningful oppor-
tunity to challenge Lionra’s evidence in its reply (which it
did, albeit without the level of detail Apple says a further
investigation could have yielded). Under the circum-
stances, Apple’s petition has not shown a clear and indis-
putable entitlement to granting its motion to strike.
     Apple also argues that, even putting that issue aside,
the district court’s transfer analysis was patently errone-
ous. We disagree. The court plausibly credited the WDTX-
based Apple employees under the witness convenience,
sources of proof, and local interest factors based on the spe-
cific information that Lionra presented regarding their rel-
evance and materiality. Apple challenges the district
court’s findings, but such case-specific, fact-intensive mat-
ters are principally entrusted to the district court, which is
generally in a better position than this court to make such
determinations. See In re Vistaprint Ltd., 628 F.3d 1342,
1346 (Fed. Cir. 2010). Apple’s petition has not sufficiently
shown that the district court veered so far afield of that
discretion as to warrant mandamus intervention under the
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4                                           IN RE: APPLE INC.

circumstances of this case. Apple has not shown otherwise
by pointing to this court’s decision in In re Google LLC,
2021 WL 4427899, at *7 (Fed. Cir. Sept. 27, 2021)—in
which we faulted the district court’s analysis, not for rely-
ing on information from a LinkedIn profile per se, but for a
lack of record support for why that individual would have
relevant and material information. Apple similarly fails to
demonstrate a clear abuse of discretion regarding the com-
pulsory process factor or to show that denial of transfer
would be patently erroneous even if that factor alone
weighed more than slightly in favor of transfer.
    Accordingly,
    IT IS ORDERED THAT:
    The petition is denied.
                                       FOR THE COURT

 August 16, 2023                       /s/ Jarrett B. Perlow
     Date                              Jarrett B. Perlow
                                       Clerk of Court