Maschoff Brennan Shareholders R. Parrish Freeman and L. Rex Sears contributed to an amicus curiae brief submitted to the United States Supreme Court in the case of TC Heartland LLC v. Kraft Foods Group Brands LLC, No. 16-341. The brief was written in support of the petitioner, TC Heartland. Freeman and Sears contributed to the brief on behalf of the American Bar Association’s Intellectual Property Law Section (IPL Section).
According to the ABA, the brief “urges the Supreme Court to conclude that the special patent venue statute limits venue for a corporate defendant to either where the defendant resides or where it has committed acts of infringement and has a regular and established place of business. Such a conclusion would reverse the holdings of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, which has, for the last 27 years, interpreted patent venue law to allow patent infringement actions to be filed nationwide.”
Freeman chaired a subcommittee of the ABA’s IPL Section Patent Litigation Committee tasked with studying the venue issue at the heart pf the TC Heartland case. The subcommittee’s work ultimately resulted in a formal policy adopted by the ABA last August, and in the position taken in the brief.