The threshold question in any convenience transfer analysis is whether the case could have been brought in the proposed transferee district. Western District of Texas Judge Alan D. Albright recently answered that question differently in two suits against the same defendant. In one, Mov-Ology, LLC (d/b/a MOVology) sued Oracle in that venue this past February. Oracle moved to transfer the case for convenience to the Northern District of California. Judge Albright has just ruled that Oracle—or more precisely, Oracle Corporation (the parent) and Oracle America Inc. (a subsidiary)—failed to show that Oracle Corporation could have been sued in the Northern District of California in the first place. Nine days earlier, Judge Albright ruled in the other case—filed by VirtaMove, Corp. (f/k/a AppZero) against just Oracle Corporation in West Texas in December 2024—that "Oracle has demonstrated it has sufficient connection to NDCA for the case to have been brought there".
The MOVology Order
Judge Albright starts his order and opinion denying Oracle's motion to transfer with the applicable law: a claim for patent infringement must be brought "in the judicial district where the defendant resides" or "where the defendant has committed acts of infringement and has a regular and established place of business". The two defendants here are Oracle Corporation, the publicly traded parent, and Oracle America, its subsidiary. As Delaware corporations, both only "reside" (for venue purposes) there, not in California. Thus, to survive the threshold question, the defendants bore the burden to show that each has "a regular and established place of business" in the Northern District of California (under the prong of the patent venue statute not dependent on corporate residence).
The court ruled that the defendants failed to show this for Oracle Corporation:
The exhibits referenced are still only referring to "Oracle," but do not provide a clear indication that Oracle Corporation has a physical presence in Redwood Shores. The exhibits do not solve the problem identified by MOV-ology: Defendants' argument comingles [sic] the two entities and fails to clearly connect Oracle Corporation to any physical presence or regular and established place of business in Redwood Shores. When the exhibits show "Oracle's" presence in Redwood Shores, they leave open the question of what Oracle entity that is. And the referenced exhibits also point to a contrary conclusion—that Austin, Texas, [sic] is the only place Oracle Corporation has a regular and established place of business.
Only one exhibit submitted to the court connected Oracle Corporation to California. Per Judge Albright, that exhibit "is not given much analysis in Defendants' reply" and ultimately failed to persuade the court: "Because the evidence Defendants point to comingles [sic] the entities and does not show how Oracle Corporation had a regular and established place of business in California, this Court finds that the preliminary showing was not met and that the Motion should be denied".
On that threshold basis, Judge Albright denied the motion. The court nevertheless proceeded—"out of an abundance of caution"—through the rest of the convenience transfer analysis, i.e., weighing four private and four public interest factors, doing so in cursory fashion (as compared to other orders resolving transfer motions before this court). On balance, Judge Albright ruled, in the alternative, that transfer should be denied based on a consideration of those factors, repeatedly emphasizing that Oracle's world headquarters is located three miles from his courthouse.
The VirtaMove Order
Oracle (again, Oracle Corporation, the only defendant in the case) moved to transfer the VirtaMove case against it to the Northern District of California—or, in the alternative, to the Austin Division of the Western District of Texas—for convenience. Judge Albright starts off this convenience transfer analysis with the same threshold question: "Beginning with the threshold inquiry of whether the case could have originally been brought in the NDCA, the Court finds that it could have. VirtaMove does not address that point in its response, and Oracle has demonstrated it has sufficient connection to NDCA for the case to have been brought there".
So, the court seems to have been convinced, based on the evidence submitted here, that Oracle Corporation could have been sued for patent infringement in the Northern District of California, i.e., that it has a "regular and established place of business" there. However, the court was unconvinced, based on the evidence submitted in the MOVology case, that the same thing is true.
Turning then to the eight public and private interest factors, in the VirtaMove case, and not merely "out of an abundance of caution", the court ruled that Oracle failed to show that the Northern District of California is clearly more convenient. It did rule, however, that transfer to the Austin Division (from the Midland/Odessa Division) of the Western District of Texas (where the MOVology case itself was filed) is "appropriate".
Nigel W. Stokes is the CEO of VirtaMove. On its public website, VirtaMove characterizes the asserted patents in its litigation campaign as protecting its product, V-Migrate, described as "automatically mov[ing] apps to new operating systems and servers". The pair of asserted patents (7,519,814; 7,784,058) here issued in April 2009 and August 2010, respectively, bookending a family of four with an earliest estimated priority date in September 2003, based on the filing of a provisional application. With its virtual file containerization patents, VirtaMove targets the provision of the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure and Oracle Kubernetes Engine.
In another case against Oracle, filed by VirtaMove on August 27, 2025, the plaintiff alleges infringement of a third patent (7,774,762) that generally relates to enabling a software application to run on an otherwise incompatible computer platform by using a "secure isolated capsule environment" that incorporates necessary system files, including a kernel module and application libraries. The accused products include various products and services that use containerized applications. On October 8, the parties filed a joint stipulation to transfer that case from the Midland-Odessa Division to the Austin Division—citing the transfer ruling described above, and stating that "based on the unique facts of this case, the Austin Division is more convenient than the Midland/Odessa Division".
Recent coverage of this campaign can be found here. Judge Albright held a claim construction hearing on October 6.
The Wider Tension
As a general matter, patent plaintiffs have preferred to file their cases in Texas; defendants in many such suits have sought transfers, most often for convenience, out of Texas, typically to the Northern District of California. To explore this wider tension, see "California-Texas Push-Pull Continues" (August 2025). The above pair of decisions may constitute a puzzling chapter in this "push-pull", at least in cases landing before Judge Albright.
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