Case: In Re Eli Lilly & Co., & Imclone Systems LLC, No. 13-164 (Fed. Cir. Oct. 18, 2013) (nonprecedential). On petition for writ of mandamus to the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. Before Newman, Prost, and Reyna.
Procedural Posture: Plaintiff petitioned for a writ of mandamus directing the United States District Court for the Northern District of California to vacate its order transferring the case to the United States District Court for the Central District of California. Plaintiff also submitted an “emergency motion” to stay transfer proceedings.
- Writ of Mandamus: The Federal Circuit gives “considerable deference to a district court’s evaluation of the role judicial economy should play in a transfer decision.” Deference is particularly appropriate where the same judge in the transferee forum had already conducted discovery, claim construction, and ruled on motions for summary judgment involving the same family of patents, and another judge in the transferor forum had recently transferred a case involving the same patents to the transferee forum. Further, on these facts, the interests of judicial economy may outweigh a forum selection clause of plaintiff’s license agreement with defendant that specifies the transferor forum as the designated forum for litigation. The petition for a writ of mandamus was denied, rendering the emergency motion for a stay moot.
