Background
Two plaintiffs — Diem LLC and Express Mobile, Inc. — filed patent infringement suits against BigCommerce, Inc. in the Eastern District of Texas. BigCommerce is a Delaware corporation with its principal place of business in Austin, Texas, which lies in the Western District of Texas. The Eastern District of Texas, by contrast, is a separate judicial district encompassing cities such as Marshall and Tyler. BigCommerce moved to dismiss or transfer, arguing that it could only be sued in the Western District of Texas — the district where it actually operates — not in the Eastern District, which had become a favored destination for patent plaintiffs largely because of its plaintiff-friendly reputation.
The district court denied the motion. The key issue was how to apply the Supreme Court’s 2017 ruling in TC Heartland LLC v. Kraft Foods Group Brands, which held that a domestic corporation resides only in its state of incorporation for patent venue purposes under 28 U.S.C. § 1400(b). BigCommerce is incorporated in Delaware but does business in Texas. The question left open by TC Heartland was: in a multi-district state like Texas, which district within that state counts as the corporate defendant’s residence?
The Court’s Holding
The Federal Circuit granted BigCommerce’s petition for mandamus and held that in a state containing multiple judicial districts, a domestic corporation resides for § 1400(b) purposes only in the single judicial district within that state where it maintains its principal place of business — or, if it has no principal place of business in that state, in the district where its registered office is located. The court rejected the argument that a corporation incorporated in a multi-district state could be sued for patent infringement in any district within that state.
The Federal Circuit reasoned that the plain meaning of “resides” in § 1400(b) denotes a specific location, not an entire state. Allowing a corporation to be sued in any district within its state of incorporation would render the venue restriction essentially meaningless in large multi-district states like Texas, California, or New York — states that contain several distinct judicial districts. The purpose of TC Heartland was to constrain forum shopping in patent cases; interpreting “resides” at the state level rather than the district level would undermine that purpose and recreate the very litigation tourism Congress sought to limit.
Key Takeaways
- For patent venue, a domestic corporation “resides” only in the specific judicial district within its state of incorporation where it has its principal place of business or registered office — not in every district of that state.
- Patent plaintiffs cannot pick between judicial districts within the defendant’s home state; they must sue in the one district that counts under § 1400(b).
- The decision significantly limits venue in states like Texas, New York, and California, which each contain multiple judicial districts — curtailing plaintiff ability to file in the Eastern District of Texas when the defendant’s operations are centered in Austin or elsewhere in the Western District.
- BigCommerce is one of a trilogy of Federal Circuit venue decisions from 2018 (along with In re Micron Technology and In re HTC Corp.) that collectively tightened patent venue rules after TC Heartland.
Why It Matters
The Eastern District of Texas became the dominant venue for patent litigation for years because its local rules, jury pools, and procedural history were perceived as favorable to patent plaintiffs. TC Heartland in 2017 changed the game by restricting where domestic corporations could be sued, but it left open how that restriction applied within multi-district states. In re BigCommerce closed that loophole: a tech company headquartered in Austin cannot be dragged into Marshall, Texas courts simply because both are in the same state.
The practical effect was immediate. Cases filed in the Eastern District of Texas against defendants headquartered in Austin, San Jose, or Los Angeles became harder to sustain, and plaintiffs had to re-evaluate forum strategy. The decision also reinforced that the Federal Circuit would interpret TC Heartland broadly to achieve its venue-constraining purpose, signaling courts and practitioners that creative venue arguments based on statewide corporate residency would not fly.