Moving to transfer a case out of Delaware is tough. This is doubly true when Delaware is the Plaintiff's "Home Turf," in which case its choice of forum is entitled to "paramount consideration." See Intellectual Ventures I LLC v. Altera Corp, 842 F. Supp. 2d 744, 754 (D. Del. 2015).
We've previously covered the split in district on the question of whether Delaware is necessarily the home turf of every entity incorporated here, or if a plaintiff needs more than a P.O. box and a certificate on file with the Secretary of State for its choice of venue to warrant "paramount consideration."
As he noted in FG SRC LLC v. Xilinx, Inc., C.A. No. 20-601-LPS, D.I. 34 (D. Del. Feb. 10, 2021), Judge Stark "believe[s] that an entity's state of incorporation is part of its home turf" regardless of any other connections it may or may not have with the district. See id. at 6-7.
The interesting bit about the FG decision is the Judge Stark's analysis was unaffected by the fact that the Plaintiff had admittedly chosen to assert the same patents against another Delaware entity in a different district (W.D. Tex.) just one week prior. See id. n.3. Although defendant pointed out that this pretty strongly suggested that the plaintiffs interest in litigating this particular suit in Delaware was more a product of strategy than a commitment to litigating in its beloved state of incorporation, Judge Stark was unmoved and proceeded to deny the motion to transfer.
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