In re: LG ELECTRONICS INC v. U.S. Dist. Court for the S. Dist. of Iowa, 490 U.S. 296, 309 1989

N OTE: This order is nonprecedential.
United States Court of Appeals
for the Federal Circuit
______________________
In re: LG ELECTRONICS INC.,
Petitioner
______________________
2019-107
______________________
On Petition for Writ of Mandamus to the United
States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas in
No. 2:17-cv-00514-JRG, Judge J. Rodney Gilstrap.
______________________
ON PETITION
______________________
Before P ROST, Chief Judge, O’MALLEY and T ARANTO,
Circuit Judges.
O’MALLEY, Circuit Judge.
O R D E R
LG Electronics Inc. (“LG Korea”) petitions for a writ of
mandamus directing the United States District Court for
the Eastern District of Texas to vacate its decision deny-
ing LG Korea’s motion to dismiss for lack of personal
jurisdiction or alternatively transfer the case pursuant to
28 U.S.C. § 1404(a). AGIS Software Development, LLC
opposes. The court denies the petition.
AGIS filed this suit in the Eastern District of Texas
against LG Korea, a South Korean corporation with no
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IN RE: LG ELECTRONICS INC. 2
offices or employees in the United States. The complaint
states that AGIS “is a limited liability company organized
and existing under the laws of the State of Texas, and
maintains its principal place of business at 100 W. Hou-
ston Street, Marshall, Texas 75670.” The complaint
alleges infringement of four patents through the importa-
tion and sale of devices that are pre-configured or adapted
with software applications developed by Google Inc. and
other third parties that allow the device users to perform
the patented methods directly, or indirectly, through
instructions to device users concerning those applications.
LG Korea moved the district court to either dismiss
the case for lack of personal jurisdiction or alternatively
to transfer the case to the Northern District of California.
LG Korea argued that its subsidiary, LG Electronics Mo-
bileComm U.S.A., Inc. (“LG Mobile”), purchases and takes
title to the accused devices in South Korea and is entirely
responsible for importing, marketing, and selling the
accused devices to customers in the United States. LG
Korea also argued that AGIS’s principals were conducting
business and enforcing these patents largely from Florida
under a related corporate entity just weeks before incor-
porating in Texas and commencing this infringement suit,
doing so only in hopes of a favorable venue. LG Korea
further urged that the Northern District of California
would be more convenient for trying this case because
both Google and LG Mobile are headquartered there.
The district court denied both requests. The court
first concluded that it had specific personal jurisdiction
over LG Korea because LG Korea knew or reasonably
could have foreseen that a termination point of its estab-
lished distribution channel was Texas, noting LG Korea’s
admissions that it knew LG Mobile was reselling the
devices to third-party carriers who distribute the phones
nationwide, including in Texas, and that LG Korea direct-
ly shipped some devices to the Dallas-Fort Worth area in
Texas. The district court next concluded that LG Korea
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IN RE LG: ELECTRONICS INC. 3
had not shown that the Northern District of California
was clearly more convenient for trial to warrant transfer.
In doing so, the court found that transferring would make
it convenient to secure more sources of proof relevant to
the case and also secure the testimony of more potentially
unwilling witnesses. However, it concluded that the
plaintiff’s chosen forum was convenient for more willing
witnesses. The court also concluded that the Eastern
District of Texas had more local interest in resolving this
case and that it could more quickly resolve the case.
A party seeking a writ bears the burden of demon-
strating that it has no “adequate alternative” means to
obtain the desired relief, Mallard v. U.S. Dist. Court for
the S. Dist. of Iowa, 490 U.S. 296, 309 (1989), and that the
right to issuance of the writ is “clear and indisputable,”
Will v. Calvert Fire Ins., 437 U.S. 655, 666 (1978) (citation
and internal quotation marks omitted). The court must
also be satisfied that the issuance of the writ is appropri-
ate under the circumstances. Cheney v. U.S. Dist. Court
for the Dist. of Columbia, 542 U.S. 367, 381 (2004). LG
Korea has failed to meet this demanding standard.
With regard to the district court’s denial of the motion
to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction, LG Korea has
not even attempted to explain why raising its arguments
on appeal after a final judgment would be inadequate. It
also has not shown a clear and indisputable right to relief.
LG Korea’s primary assertion of error essentially appears
to be that there is no personal jurisdiction for an in-
fringement action in the Eastern District of Texas because
it has not committed any patent infringement there or
anywhere else in the United States. That, however, is a
merits issue, and one that we should address only after it
is resolved in the first instance by the district court.
With regard to transfer, we have held in cases arising
from district courts in the Fifth Circuit that mandamus
may only be granted when a denial of transfer amounts to
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IN RE: LG ELECTRONICS INC. 4
a “’clear’ abuse of discretion” such that refusing transfer
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 F.3d 304, 310 (5th Cir.
2008) (en banc). We cannot say that a denial of transfer
under these circumstances was such an abuse. It is
undisputed that the Eastern District of Texas could more
quickly resolve the case, which is worthy of at least some
consideration. Cf. Parsons v. Chesapeake & Ohio Ry. Co.,
375 U.S. 71, 73 (1963). The case also was assigned to the
same district judge who is overseeing another action filed
by AGIS involving the same patents, suggesting that the
court system as a whole could benefit from adjudicating
this case in plaintiff’s chosen forum.* See In re Vistaprint
Ltd., 628 F.3d 1342, 1346 (Fed. Cir. 2010). And while
AGIS’s incorporation in Texas is deserving of little consid-
eration, it is not clear that the allegations in this case are
a concern of significant local interest to either forum.
Accordingly,
I T I S O RDERED T HAT :
The petition is denied.
F OR THE COURT
Jan. 24, 2019 /s/ Peter R. Marksteiner
Date Peter R. Marksteiner
Clerk of Court
s31
* While the district court was correct not to weigh this
consideration against transfer because at the time there
was a pending motion to transfer the related case, the
district court ultimately denied transfer in both cases and
this court recently denied mandamus to transfer the
related case, ensuring that it will remain in Texas.
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