Pretrial Joinder of Parties does not Impact Consolidation for Trial or Venue Analysis

The court granted two defendants' motion to sever and transfer venue from the Central District of California to the Northern District of Illinois and rejected the argument that pretrial joinder weighed against transfer. "[T]he Court finds persuasive a recent decision stating that: where the plaintiff initiates patent infringement litigation against multiple, unrelated defendants located in different districts, the problem of litigating in multiple forums can be one of its own making. . . . [P]atent holders who sue multiple defendants located in different districts, for different allegedly infringing products, may encounter the cost of multiple law suits in different forums. . . . To the extent that the Court issued an order joining the parties for discovery and pretrial purposes, it reflects a case management strategy to promote judicial efficiency and bears little on whether the cases could or should be consolidated for trial under section 299(a)(1). Thus, the fact that the Court joined these cases for pre-trial purposes does not weigh in favor of keeping these cases together."

Secured Mail Solutions LLC v. Advanced Image Direct LLC, et. al., 8-12-cv-01090 (CACD January 30, 2013, Order) (Carter, J.).