Reported / Citable
Background
The Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation previously transferred six actions involving Rare Breed Triggers patent litigation to the Eastern District of Texas for coordinated or consolidated pretrial proceedings under 28 U.S.C. § 1407. Since then, the Panel had transferred 33 additional actions to that district, where they were assigned to Judge Amos L. Mazzant III.
ABC IP, LLC and related plaintiffs sued Dirty Bird Industries, LLC and related defendants in the Eastern District of California. The Panel identified that action as a tag-along case in Conditional Transfer Order 5.
The Court’s Holding
The Panel conditionally transferred the ABC IP–Dirty Bird action to the Eastern District of Texas for coordinated or consolidated pretrial proceedings in In re: Rare Breed Triggers Patent Litigation, MDL No. 3176. It concluded that the action appeared to involve factual questions common to the cases already centralized there.
The order assigned the action to Judge Mazzant with that court’s consent. The transfer was not immediately effective: filing with the Eastern District of Texas clerk was stayed for seven days, and a timely notice of opposition would continue the stay until further order.
Key Takeaways
- The order is a conditional transfer order under 28 U.S.C. § 1407, not a merits ruling on the patent claims.
- The Panel treated the action as a tag-along case sharing factual questions with the Rare Breed Triggers MDL.
- A party could oppose the conditional transfer within the specified seven-day period.
Why It Matters
The order places this patent case on the path to centralized pretrial management with the related Rare Breed Triggers litigation. Centralization can consolidate discovery and other pretrial work, while leaving the transfer subject to the Panel’s conditional-transfer procedures.