Judge Leighton Dismisses Patent Case for Lack of Personal Jurisdiction

I'm beginning to wonder whether specific personal jurisdiction in the Western District of Washington can ever exist over an out of state defendant in a patent case. Perhaps it's too early to call this a "trend," but Judge Leighton's recent decision (November 2, 2007) dismissing a DJ complaint under Rule 12(b)(2), The Campbell Pet Co. v. Theresa Miale, (C07-5375 RBL) follows closely after a similar ruling by Judge Zilly in October, High Maintenance Bitch v. Uptown Dog Club, Inc. (C07-0888 TSZ).

In both cases, Defendants sold products within this judicial district, and both operated interactive web sites where people from Washington could purchase those products. The Campbell Pet Co. case involved a complaint for declaratory judgment that US Pat. Nos. 6,199,508 and 6,230,622 were invalid and not infringed by Campbell's sale of certain mobile folding stretchers for transporting injured animals. The accused products in Campbell Pet Co. were all made and sold in Vancouver, Washington. Further, over 40 people were employed by Campbell in Washington. No doubt these people were selling items in Washington accused of infringing both patents in suit. The existence of a reasonable apprehension of suit concerning these items was apparently not challenged by the Defendants, i.e., they did not deny the fact that they had accused a Washington company of infringement, and that these accusations placed a cloud of infringement over the products made and sold by Plaintiff's 40 Vancouver-based employees. Indeed, some of the accusations giving rise to DJ subject matter jurisdiction were carried out by the Defendants in person at a trade show in Seattle. Apparently threats of infringement were made directly to the plaintiffs, and then again to the trade show's organizer. Again, all of this happened in Seattle.

In dismissing the complaint for lack of personal jurisdiction, Judge Leighton's opinion focuses on the complaint's challenge to the validity of the patents, and reasons that the "sporadic sales and marketing of [Defendant's] products in the State of Washington has no nexus with the validity of the patents at issue." Of course, focusing on the sales of Defendants into Washington may be only tangentially relevant to the personal jurisdiction inquiry where the claims arise under the Declaratory judgment Statute. When claims are in the nature of declaratory judgment, the suit "arises from" or is most related to the threat of infringement. Defendant's sale of products into Washington should be of lesser importance to determine whether the exercise of jurisdiction over Defendants comports with due process. The transaction giving rise to the complaint most certainly occurred in Washington, and this should have been given some weight by the Court in my view.

complaintcampbellpetco.pdf
OrderDismissCampbellPet.pdf