"Despite the limitations imposed by TC Heartland, § 1400(b) offers an alternative path to a desired district “where the defendant has committed acts of infringement and has a regular and established place of business.” Merely months after TC Heartland, which did not address this alternative, the Federal Circuit in In re Cray[3] rejected the Eastern District of Texas’ expansive four-factor test and set forth three requirements for determining whether a defendant has a “regular and established place of business” in the district: (1) there must be a physical place in the district; (2) it must be regular and established; and (3) it must be the place of the defendant."
The issue is that both of you chose to focus on one facet of a multi-faceted question and are now talking circles around each other.
As Aloha pointed out, SCOTUS has ruled that a corporation only has residency in its state of incorporation, so Texas no longer qualifies for Apple (as it could before the 2017 ruling).
You then pointed out that a case can be brought against a defendant if they have "an established place of business" in that district.
These are two facets of the same problem, and a thorough answer to OC's question requires both parts. It wouldn't make any sense for Apple to close their locations before the SCOTUS ruling, because a plaintiff could argue that they had residency there, regardless of where their physical places of business happen to be. One is the what, the other is the "why now?"
But I think Aloha's point was less "here is the entire explanation" and more "maybe if you RTFA you'd have the answer to your question". Which is what OC definitely should've done, rather than NOT reading the article and immediately going to the comments to ask a question which is answered in the article. Instead, you guys each answered half of the question and then started talking circles around one another.
The Supreme Court case (and subsequent rulings) eliminated what amounted to "someone might have conducted business in this jurisdiction" and narrowed it to, "place of incorporation" and "a place where the company has a permanent office and regularly does business"
"Despite the limitations imposed by TC Heartland, § 1400(b) offers an alternative path to a desired district “where the defendant has committed acts of infringement and has a regular and established place of business.” Merely months after TC Heartland, which did not address this alternative, the Federal Circuit in In re Cray[3] rejected the Eastern District of Texas’ expansive four-factor test and set forth three requirements for determining whether a defendant has a “regular and established place of business” in the district: (1) there must be a physical place in the district; (2) it must be regular and established; and (3) it must be the place of the defendant."
https://www.krcl.com/articles/patently-unpredictable-patent-...