Judge Albright Reconsiders and Grants Stay for Google LLC

On March 30, 2022, Judge Albright reconsidered Defendant Google LLC’s (“Google”) motion to sever and stay in Sonrai Memory Ltd. v. Google LLC.

Plaintiff Sonrai Memory Limited (“Sonrai”) is prosecuting eight patent infringement actions, all in the Western District of Texas. Plaintiff accuses Google of infringing U.S. Patent No. 6,724,241 (the “’241 patent”) under the stream of commerce theory. Google requested a stay pending resolution of two other lawsuits involving the Manufacturers of the accused infringing product: Kioxia and Western Digital Technologies, Inc.

The court reconsidered its Original Order issued on February 23, 2022, denying the requested stay because “[o]n March 18, 2022, counsel for Google contacted the Court’s clerk via email, representing that ‘Google will agree to be bound by any validity or invalidity determination as to the ’241 patent in the KIOXIA Manufacturer Action if the Court would stay the Google case as to the ’241 patent pending resolution of the KIOXIA Manufacturer Action.” Originally, Google refused to be bound by any validity/invalidity determinations in the lawsuits against the Manufacturers.

Based on this new information, Judge Albright severed Google from one of the counts of the lawsuit and granted stay pending the resolution of the KIOXIA Manufacturer Action.