Last week the Federal Circuit reversed the decision by  Judge Gilstrap of E.D. Texas to proceed with litigation, rather than stay the litigation pending the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board (“PTAB”) review of the asserted patents under the Transitional Program for Covered Business Method Patents (“CBM”).  This is the first time the Federal Circuit

Today, Fri., May 4, 2012, in In re Misc EMC, Misc. No. 100, the Federal Circuit (Rader, Dyk and Moore) granted mandamus and ordered the  E.D. Tex. district court to reconsider its ruling that allowed joinder of 18 defendants based on a new “sameness test” for joinder (rejecting the district court’s “not dramatically different” test).  The new sameness test appears to limit joinder of multiple defendants in a single case, but the Court noted that cases still may be coordinated in a single court if venue is proper and that multidistrict litigation may be proper for pretrial issues of claim construction and patent invalidity.
Continue Reading Patent Alert: Federal Circuit creates “sameness test” for joinder of multiple defendants (In re EMC)