In Re JUNIPER NETWORKS, INC. ( 2021 )


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  • Case: 21-160   Document: 15    Page: 1   Filed: 09/24/2021
    United States Court of Appeals
    for the Federal Circuit
    ______________________
    IN RE: JUNIPER NETWORKS, INC.,
    Petitioner
    ______________________
    2021-160
    ______________________
    On Petition for Writ of Mandamus to the United States
    District Court for the Western District of Texas in Nos.
    6:20-cv-00812-ADA, 6:20-cv-00813-ADA, 6:20-cv-00814-
    ADA, 6:20-cv-00815-ADA, 6:20-cv-00902-ADA, and 6:20-
    cv-00903-ADA, Judge Alan D. Albright.
    ______________________
    ON PETITION
    ______________________
    KEVIN P.B. JOHNSON, Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sul-
    livan, LLP, Redwood Shores, CA, for petitioner Juniper
    Networks, Inc. Also represented by TODD MICHAEL BRIGGS.
    SARAH GABRIELLE HARTMAN, Brown Rudnick LLP, Ir-
    vine, CA, for respondent WSOU Investments LLC. Also
    represented by DAVID STEIN; ALESSANDRA CARCATERRA
    MESSING, TIMOTHY J. ROUSSEAU, New York, NY; EDWARD
    JOSEPH NAUGHTON, Boston, MA.
    ______________________
    Before LOURIE, BRYSON, and TARANTO, Circuit Judges.
    PER CURIAM.
    ORDER
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    2                                 IN RE: JUNIPER NETWORKS, INC.
    Juniper Networks, Inc., petitions for a writ of manda-
    mus directing the United States District Court for the
    Western District of Texas to transfer these six actions to
    the United States District Court for the Northern District
    of California. We hold that in denying the motion to trans-
    fer the district court committed legal errors that require
    that we vacate the order denying transfer and direct that
    the case be transferred under 
    28 U.S.C. § 1404
    (a). Accord-
    ingly, we grant Juniper’s petition and issue the writ of
    mandamus.
    I
    In September 2020, WSOU Investments LLC d/b/a
    Brazos Licensing and Development (referred to here as
    “Brazos”) filed seven complaints in the Waco Division of the
    Western District of Texas charging Juniper, a Delaware
    corporation headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, with
    infringing seven different patents that had been assigned
    to Brazos. 1
    Juniper moved the district court to transfer the case to
    the Northern District of California pursuant to 
    28 U.S.C. § 1404
    (a). Juniper argued that “whatever ties Brazos has
    to this District appear to have been created for the purpose
    of its patent litigation activities in this District.” Juniper
    pointed out that Brazos “describes itself as a patent asser-
    tion entity” and that it “does not seem to conduct any busi-
    ness” from its recently opened office in Waco other than
    filing patent lawsuits. Juniper further pointed out that the
    assignment agreement by which Brazos received much of
    1    Brazos dismissed one of the complaints. The re-
    maining six actions are all before the court in this manda-
    mus proceeding. The parties do not suggest that there is
    any difference among the actions that matter for purposes
    of this proceeding, so we refer to the six actions collectively
    as a single case.
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    IN RE: JUNIPER NETWORKS, INC.                                3
    its patent portfolio lists a California address for Brazos,
    and that only one of the officers listed on its website resides
    in Texas. Two of Brazos’s officers, its CEO and its presi-
    dent, reside in California and thus would be subject to com-
    pulsory process from a district court in the Northern
    District of California. App. 133.
    Juniper asserted that the Northern District of Califor-
    nia was a clearly more convenient forum than the Western
    District of Texas for litigating this case. In a sworn decla-
    ration, Juniper stated that the accused products were pri-
    marily designed, developed, marketed, and sold from
    Juniper’s Sunnyvale headquarters within the Northern
    District of California. App. 151. Juniper noted that poten-
    tial witnesses who would be expected to testify as to the
    structure and function of the accused products, as well as
    the marketing and sale of those products, are located in the
    Northern District of California, and that Juniper had
    “identified no employees involved in the design, develop-
    ment, testing, marketing, financing, or sales of the Accused
    Products who work in Texas.” App. 150–51.
    In response, Brazos pointed out that it maintains an
    office in Waco, within the Western District of Texas, where
    two persons are employed, and that at the time the com-
    plaints were filed, Juniper had a small office in Austin,
    Texas, also within the Western District of Texas. 2
    The district court denied the motion to transfer. The
    court acknowledged that the six actions could have been
    brought in the Northern District of California. It then took
    note of the four private interest factors and four public
    2    Juniper represents that its office in Austin, which
    was directed to servicing customers of a company that Ju-
    niper acquired, had no involvement relating to the products
    at issue in this case. The office was closed shortly after the
    last of the complaints in this case was filed.
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    4                               IN RE: JUNIPER NETWORKS, INC.
    interest factors that have traditionally been identified as
    the governing factors in determining whether the trans-
    feror or the transferee district is the more convenient.
    As the court explained, the private factors are (1) the
    relative ease of access to sources of proof; (2) the availabil-
    ity of compulsory process to secure the attendance of non-
    party witnesses whose attendance may need to be com-
    pelled by court order; (3) the relative convenience of the two
    forums for potential witnesses; and (4) all other practical
    problems that make the trial of a case easy, expeditious,
    and inexpensive. The four public interest factors are (1)
    the administrative difficulties flowing from court conges-
    tion; (2) the local interest in having disputes regarding ac-
    tivities occurring principally within a particular district
    decided in that forum; (3) the familiarity of the forum with
    the law that will govern the case; and (4) the avoidance of
    unnecessary problems of conflict of laws or in the applica-
    tion of foreign law. See In re Volkswagen of Am., Inc., 
    545 F.3d 304
    , 315 (5th Cir. 2008) (en banc); In re Volkswagen
    AG, 
    371 F.3d 201
    , 203 (5th Cir. 2004).
    With respect to the relative ease of access to sources of
    proof between the transferor and transferee districts, the
    court found that Brazos had not identified any relevant
    documents located at its Waco office that were entitled to
    any weight in the transfer decision. As for Juniper’s docu-
    ments, the court acknowledged that Juniper represented,
    without contradiction, that the “majority of the physical
    and documentary evidence relating to the cases at hand, as
    well as the relevant source code, is stored at its headquar-
    ters in California.” However, the court noted that Juniper
    had admitted that it stored information in other locations
    as well (but not in Texas). For that reason, the court con-
    cluded that Juniper had not “sufficiently differentiated
    which documents would be more readily available in the
    [Northern District of California] compared to the [Western
    District of Texas].” The court therefore found that the
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    IN RE: JUNIPER NETWORKS, INC.                              5
    sources-of-proof factor did not weigh either in favor of or
    against transfer.
    With respect to the availability of compulsory process,
    the court found that neither party had identified any of its
    proposed witnesses as unwilling witnesses whose appear-
    ance would require the issuance of court process. The court
    stated that the compulsory process factor “carries little
    weight when neither party claims any witnesses would be
    unwilling to testify.” Curiously, however, the court then
    determined that the compulsory process factor weighed
    slightly against transfer.
    With respect to the relative convenience of the two fo-
    rums for potential witnesses, the court noted that Juniper
    had identified eleven potential party witnesses and four
    non-party prior-art witnesses, all of whom were located in
    the Northern District of California, whereas Brazos had
    identified only one potential witness—one of its employ-
    ees—who was located in the Western District of Texas.
    Nonetheless, the district court concluded that the conven-
    ience-to-the-witnesses factor weighed only slightly in favor
    of transfer.
    The district court explained that, in its view, the con-
    venience of party witnesses and prior art witnesses is enti-
    tled to little weight. Prior art witnesses, the court stated,
    are generally unlikely to testify, and party witnesses are
    within the control of the party and can be compelled to tes-
    tify wherever the trial is conducted. The court added that
    Brazos’s CEO and its president, who would be traveling
    from California to testify in Texas if the case were not
    transferred, would not be inconvenienced by the need to
    travel, because they could work from Brazos’s offices dur-
    ing the time that they would be attending the trial. The
    court found that the convenience factor weighed in favor of
    transfer, but only slightly so.
    As for which district has the greater local interest in
    the dispute, the district court recognized that the most
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    6                               IN RE: JUNIPER NETWORKS, INC.
    relevant consideration bearing on that factor is where the
    development of the allegedly infringing products occurred.
    However, the court concluded that the local interest factor
    weighed against transfer in this case because “Juniper
    maintains a substantial presence in both the WDTX and
    Texas as a whole through its Texas offices, and it leased an
    office in Austin both at the time of the filing of this lawsuit
    as well as the filing of the motion to transfer.” The court
    also noted that “Brazos is both headquartered in and has
    its principal place of business in Waco, and its ties to the
    WDTX are not insignificant.” And the court found that “Ju-
    niper has not shown that the development of the accused
    products took place entirely within the NDCA.”
    Finally, the district court found that the court-conges-
    tion factor weighed against transfer because the court in
    Waco would be likely to reach trial more quickly than
    would be the case in the Northern District of California.
    The court found the remaining factors bearing on transfer
    to be neutral.
    Taking into account the weight it had assigned to each
    of the factors it considered, the district court concluded that
    Juniper had not established that the Northern District of
    California was a clearly more convenient forum for this lit-
    igation. Accordingly, the court denied the transfer motion.
    II
    Congress has authorized district courts to transfer civil
    actions “[f]or the convenience of parties and witnesses,
    [and] in the interest of justice.” 
    28 U.S.C. § 1404
    (a). In
    reviewing transfer decisions, we look to the applicable re-
    gional circuit law, in this case the law of the Fifth Circuit,
    which provides that a motion to transfer venue pursuant to
    section 1404(a) should be granted if “the movant demon-
    strates that the transferee venue is clearly more conven-
    ient[.]” In re Radmax, Ltd., 
    720 F.3d 285
    , 288 (5th Cir.
    2013) (quoting Volkswagen, 545 F.3d at 315).
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    IN RE: JUNIPER NETWORKS, INC.                                7
    A district court generally enjoys broad discretion in
    making the transfer determination. See In re Vistaprint
    Ltd., 
    628 F.3d 1342
    , 1344 (Fed. Cir. 2010). However, when
    a district court’s denial of a motion to transfer amounts to
    a clear abuse of discretion under governing legal stand-
    ards, we have issued mandamus to overturn the denial of
    transfer. See, e.g., In re Samsung Elecs. Co., 
    2 F.4th 1371
    (Fed. Cir. 2021); In re Apple Inc., 
    979 F.3d 1332
     (Fed. Cir.
    2020); In re Hulu, LLC, No. 2021-142, 
    2021 WL 3278194
    (Fed. Cir. Aug. 2, 2021); In re Uber Techs., Inc., 852 F.
    App’x 542 (Fed. Cir. 2021); In re TracFone Wireless, Inc.,
    848 F. App’x 899 (Fed. Cir. 2021); In re Adobe Inc., 823 F.
    App’x 929 (Fed. Cir. 2020); see also Volkswagen, 545 F.3d
    at 315. Based on a close study of the record in this case, we
    conclude that the district court clearly abused its discretion
    in finding that Juniper failed to make the requisite show-
    ing to call for transfer of this case to the Northern District
    of California.
    First, as we have previously explained, the relative
    convenience for and cost of attendance of witnesses be-
    tween the two forums is “probably the single most im-
    portant factor in transfer analysis.” In re Genentech, Inc.,
    
    566 F.3d 1338
    , 1343 (Fed. Cir. 2009) (quoting Neil Bros.
    Ltd. v. World Wide Lines, Inc., 
    425 F. Supp. 2d 325
    , 329
    (E.D.N.Y. 2006)); see Apple, 979 F.3d at 1341; In re Acer
    Am. Corp., 
    626 F.3d 1252
    , 1255 (Fed. Cir. 2010). In this
    instance, the district court clearly erred in not giving suffi-
    cient weight to the relative convenience of the transferee
    forum for the potential witnesses, particularly in light of
    the striking imbalance in the parties’ respective presenta-
    tions on this factor.
    Juniper identified eleven potential party witnesses
    who were located in the Northern District of California,
    while Brazos identified only one party witness in the West-
    ern District of Texas. The district court attached little
    weight to the evidence regarding the party witnesses, how-
    ever. Citing one of its own prior decisions, the court stated
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    8                              IN RE: JUNIPER NETWORKS, INC.
    that “party witnesses are generally accorded little weight
    as they can be compelled by the parties to testify.”
    The district court also stated that it “assumes that no
    more than a few party witnesses will testify live at trial”
    and that in any event “it is unlikely that all of them will
    testify.” The court’s assumption that Juniper would not
    call many party witnesses was not based on any evidence
    specific to this case. On the other side of the ledger, only
    one witness was identified as being located in or near the
    Western District of Texas, and that witness, a Brazos em-
    ployee, was not alleged to have information relating to the
    merits of the infringement claims against Juniper.
    As for prior-art witnesses, the court stated that they
    “are accorded little weight in the analysis as they are gen-
    erally considered unlikely to testify.” The court again cited
    one of its own prior opinions as support for that statement.
    We have previously rejected the district court’s reliance
    on the proposition that the convenience-to-the-witnesses
    factor is attenuated when the witnesses are employees of
    the party calling them. See Hulu, 
    2021 WL 3278194
    , at *5
    (rejecting district court’s position that a party’s ability to
    compel the testimony of its employees supported giving the
    location of those witnesses little or no weight under a will-
    ing witness factor). We have also rejected the district
    court’s categorical assumption that defendants are likely to
    call few if any of the proposed party witnesses or prior-art
    witnesses that are identified for purposes of supporting
    transfer motions. See Samsung, 2 F.4th at 1379; In re Ap-
    ple Inc., 818 F. App’x 1001, 1003 (Fed. Cir. 2020); In re
    DISH Network, L.L.C., 856 F. App’x 310, 311 (Fed. Cir.
    2021); Uber, 852 F. App’x at 543. In Hulu, we also disap-
    proved of the district court’s discounting all of Hulu’s prior
    art witnesses; we stated that the “categorical rejection of
    Hulu’s witnesses is entirely untethered to the facts of this
    case and therefore was an abuse of discretion.” 
    2021 WL 3278194
    , at *3.
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    IN RE: JUNIPER NETWORKS, INC.                                9
    The force of Juniper’s showing as to the inconvenience
    and cost entailed in requiring witnesses to testify at a re-
    mote forum is particularly strong in light of the very weak
    showing on that issue made by Brazos. As we explained in
    Samsung, “[e]ven if not all witnesses testify, with nothing
    on the other side of the ledger, the factor strongly favors
    transfer.” Samsung, 2 F.4th at 1379; see also Hulu, 
    2021 WL 3278194
    , at *5.
    Second, the district court erred in applying the local in-
    terest factor. The court acknowledged that the events
    forming the basis for Brazos’s infringement claims oc-
    curred mainly in the Northern District of California; none
    occurred in the Western District of Texas. That is suffi-
    cient to give the transferee venue a greater localized inter-
    est in the dispute, which favors transfer. See Samsung, 2
    F.4th at 1380 (transfer favored because most, even if not
    all, of the underlying research, design, and development of
    the accused products centered on activity within the trans-
    feree venue); Acer, 
    626 F.3d at 1256
     (transfer favored be-
    cause “[t]he company asserting harm and many of the
    companies alleged to cause that harm are all residents of
    that district, as are the inventor and patent prosecuting at-
    torneys whose work may be questioned at trial”).
    The district court’s conclusion that the local interest
    factor weighed against transfer was premised on the fact
    that Juniper had leased a small office in Austin at the time
    the motion to transfer was filed. But as the district court
    acknowledged, Juniper’s office in Austin existed “to service
    a startup company that Juniper acquired which has no con-
    nection with the products accused of infringement in these
    cases.”
    Juniper’s general presence in the Western District of
    Texas is not enough to establish a local interest in that dis-
    trict comparable to that of the Northern District of Califor-
    nia. As we explained in In re Apple, this factor “most
    notably regards not merely the parties’ significant
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    10                               IN RE: JUNIPER NETWORKS, INC.
    connections to each forum writ large, but rather the ‘signif-
    icant connections between a particular venue and the
    events that gave rise to a suit.’” 979 F.3d at 1345 (quoting
    Acer, 
    626 F.3d at 1256
    ) (emphasis in Apple). In that case,
    we held that the district court “misapplied the law to the
    facts” when it “heavily weigh[ed]” the defendant’s “general
    contacts with the forum that are untethered to the law-
    suit.” Id.; see also In re Google LLC, 855 F. App’x 767, 768
    (Fed. Cir. 2021) (“Google’s mere presence in the Western
    District of Texas insofar as it is not tethered to the events
    underlying the litigation is not entitled to weight in ana-
    lyzing the local interest factor in this case.”); DISH Net-
    work, 856 F. App’x at 311; Samsung, 2 F.4th at 1380.
    Aside from Juniper’s general presence in Austin, the
    district court relied on the fact that Brazos was incorpo-
    rated in Texas and maintained its principal office in Waco,
    within the Western District of Texas. But Brazos’s status
    as a Waco-based entity is not entitled to significant weight.
    Brazos’s presence in Waco appears to be both recent and
    relatively insubstantial. The office was established only a
    few months before the complaints against Juniper were
    filed, and the activities of the office are largely tied to bring-
    ing lawsuits in that court. Brazos has only two employees
    who work from Waco, one of whom is its in-house attorney
    responsible for litigation. The principal officers of Brazos
    are located in California.
    We have noted in other mandamus cases that little or
    no weight should be accorded to a party’s “recent and
    ephemeral” presence in the transferor forum, such as by
    establishing an office in order to claim a presence in the
    district for purposes of litigation. See In re Microsoft Corp.,
    
    630 F.3d 1361
    , 1365 (Fed. Cir. 2011); see also Samsung, 2
    F.4th at 1378; In re Zimmer Holdings, Inc., 
    609 F.3d 1378
    ,
    1381 (Fed. Cir. 2010) (party shared office space in the
    transferor district; its presence in Texas “appears to be re-
    cent, ephemeral, and an artifact of litigation”); In re Apple
    Inc., 374 F. App’x 997, 999 (Fed. Cir. 2010) (“[T]he status
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    IN RE: JUNIPER NETWORKS, INC.                                 11
    of Personal Audio, LLC, as a Texas corporation is not enti-
    tled to significant weight, inasmuch as the company’s pres-
    ence in Texas appears to be both recent and ephemeral—
    its office is apparently the office of its Texas litigation coun-
    sel, and it appears not to have any employees in Texas.”).
    Brazos’s presence in the Western District of Texas is
    insubstantial compared to the presence of Juniper in the
    Northern District of California. See Microsoft, 
    630 F.3d at 1364
    . Moreover, it appears that the relationship between
    the Texas forum and Brazos is merely the product of pur-
    suing litigation in a preferred forum and is entitled to little
    weight. Cf. In re Hoffmann-La Roche Inc., 
    587 F.3d 1333
    ,
    1337 (Fed. Cir. 2009) (characterizing pre-litigation transfer
    of documents as “a fiction which appears to have been cre-
    ated to manipulate the propriety of venue” and concluding
    that the denial of transfer “ha[d] no legally rational basis”
    as a result).
    Third, the district court erred in its assessment of the
    availability of sources of proof. Juniper submitted a sworn
    declaration from its Senior Director of Strategy & Corpo-
    rate Development attesting to the fact that Juniper “stores
    the majority of its documentary evidence relevant to the
    Accused Products . . . at its Sunnyvale headquarters.”
    App. 151. The district court faulted the declaration as not
    being specific enough, stating that “[v]ague assertions that
    the ‘majority’ of the evidence relating to the accused de-
    vices is located in California invites this court to speculate
    on where particular pieces of evidence are located.”
    That criticism is unjustified. The declaration ex-
    plained that the evidentiary records maintained at Juni-
    per’s Sunnyvale headquarters included “records relating to
    the research and design of the Accused Products, source
    code, and marketing, sales, and financial information for
    the Accused Products.” App. 151. Moreover, while Juniper
    maintains evidence on servers in other locations, it is un-
    disputed that no Juniper evidence relating to the facts of
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    12                             IN RE: JUNIPER NETWORKS, INC.
    these lawsuits is located in the Western District of Texas.
    The only evidence that was identified as being located in
    that district belonged to Brazos. And as to that evidence,
    the district court found that it was not sufficiently relevant
    to be entitled to any weight at all.
    We have held that the fact that some evidence is stored
    in places other than either the transferor or the transferee
    forum does not weigh against transfer. See In re Toyota
    Motor Corp., 
    747 F.3d 1338
    , 1340 (Fed. Cir. 2014); In re HP
    Inc., 826 F. App’x 899, 902 (Fed. Cir. 2020). What matters
    is the relative access to sources of evidence in the two com-
    peting forums. See Radmax, 720 F.3d at 288 (noting “the
    question is relative ease of access, not absolute ease of ac-
    cess”) (emphasis omitted). And while electronic storage of
    documents makes them more widely accessible than was
    true in the past, that does not make the sources-of-proof
    factor irrelevant. See Volkswagen, 545 F.3d at 316 (“That
    access to some sources of proof presents a lesser inconven-
    ience now than it might have absent recent developments
    does not render this factor superfluous.”). Based on the dif-
    ference between the two venues with respect to the sources
    of proof, the district court should have weighed that factor
    in favor of transfer.
    Fourth, the court erred in finding that the potential
    need for recourse to compulsory process weighed against
    transfer. The sole basis for the district court’s finding on
    that factor was the parties’ failure to identify any unwilling
    witnesses who would need to be subpoenaed. That no party
    expressly identified any witness as unwilling to testify,
    however, does not cut in favor of conducting this litigation
    in the Western District of Texas rather than in the North-
    ern District of California. The district court’s analysis of
    the compulsory process factor confuses “[the] burden of
    demonstrating that the transferee venue is clearly more
    convenient with the showing needed for a conclusion that
    a particular private or public interest factor favors trans-
    fer.” Apple, 979 F.3d at 1340. Taking the court’s findings
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    IN RE: JUNIPER NETWORKS, INC.                            13
    on their own terms, this factor should be regarded as neu-
    tral at most, and certainly not as weighing against trans-
    fer. In fact, because Juniper identified several non-party
    potential witnesses in the Northern District of California,
    and Brazos identified none in the Western District of
    Texas, it is puzzling why this factor was not treated as
    weighing at least slightly in favor of transfer.
    Finally, the district court’s conclusion that the court-
    congestion factor weighed against transfer rested solely on
    Brazos’s assertion that the Texas forum had a faster me-
    dian time to trial than the California forum. The district
    court, however, did not explain how that difference in the
    prospective time to trial was caused by an appreciable dif-
    ference in the degree of docket congestion between the two
    forums.
    We have noted that the Western District of Texas and
    the Northern District of California show no significant dif-
    ferences in caseload or time-to-trial statistics. See Sam-
    sung, 2 F.4th at 1380–81; Apple, 979 F.3d at 1343–44. The
    district court based its analysis on scheduled trial dates.
    But we have held that it is improper to assess the court
    congestion factor based on the fact that the Western Dis-
    trict of Texas has employed an aggressive scheduling order
    for setting a trial date. See Samsung, 2 F.4th at 1380–81;
    Apple, 979 F.3d at 1344; see also Hulu, 
    2021 WL 3278194
    ,
    at *5 (determining that the court congestion factor was
    neutral after considering the close similarity in the number
    of cases per judgeship and the actual average time to trial
    in the Western District of Texas and the Northern District
    of California, and noting that the “consideration that the
    district court assumed tipped the scales toward denying
    transfer was its own ability to set an early trial date and
    bring a case to trial earlier than district-wide statistics
    would suggest”); Adobe, 823 F. App’x at 932 (“The factor
    concerns whether there is an appreciable difference in
    docket congestion between the two forums. . . . Nothing
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    14                              IN RE: JUNIPER NETWORKS, INC.
    about the court’s general ability to set a schedule directly
    speaks to that issue.”); Samsung, 2 F.4th at 1380–81.
    In any event, we do not regard the relative speed with
    which this case might be brought to trial in the two dis-
    tricts to be of particular significance. See Samsung, 2 F.4th
    at 1380–81. We have described the court congestion factor
    as the “most speculative” of the factors bearing of the trans-
    fer decision. Genentech, 
    566 F.3d at 1347
    ; see also Apple,
    979 F.3d at 1344 n.5. And when other relevant factors
    weigh in favor of transfer or are neutral, “then the speed of
    the transferee district court should not alone outweigh
    those other factors.” Genentech, 
    566 F.3d at 1347
    .
    Beyond that, Brazos is not engaged in the manufacture
    or sale of products that practice the asserted patents. In-
    stead, Brazos describes itself as a company that “help[s] in-
    ventors and patent owners maximize the full potential of
    their patents.” App. 262. It does not suggest it is in need
    of a quick resolution because its position in the market is
    being threatened. Even if the district court’s projection of
    the likely time to trial in the two venues is accurate, the
    court did not point to any reason that a more rapid dispo-
    sition of the case that might be available in Texas is worthy
    of important weight. See In re Morgan Stanley, 417 F.
    App’x 947, 950 (Fed. Cir. 2011).
    In sum, this case is a very close cousin of our recent
    decisions in Samsung and Hulu, and the disposition of this
    case is largely dictated by the disposition of those cases. In
    those cases, as in this one, the center of gravity of the action
    was clearly in the transferee districts, not the Western Dis-
    trict of Texas. And as in those cases, several of the most
    important factors bearing on the transfer decision in this
    case strongly favor the transferee court, and no factor fa-
    vors retaining the case in the transferor court. See In re
    Nintendo Co., 
    589 F.3d 1194
    , 1198 (Fed. Cir. 2009) (“This
    court has held and holds again in this instance that in a
    case featuring most witnesses and evidence closer to the
    Case: 21-160    Document: 15     Page: 15     Filed: 09/24/2021
    IN RE: JUNIPER NETWORKS, INC.                             15
    transferee venue with few or no convenience factors favor-
    ing the venue chosen by the plaintiff, the trial court should
    grant a motion to transfer.”).
    Accordingly,
    IT IS ORDERED THAT:
    The petition is granted. The district court’s order deny-
    ing Juniper’s motion to transfer is vacated, and the district
    court is directed to grant the transfer motion.
    FOR THE COURT
    September 24, 2021                 /s/ Peter R. Marksteiner
    Date                         Peter R. Marksteiner
    Clerk of Court