The United States Supreme Court has just dealt a big blow to “patent trolls” that buy up patents to license them or sue companies for infringing on them.

The high court ruled on Monday that cases related to patents can only be filed in the jurisdiction where the company targeted is incorporated, appearing to deal a mortal blow to the practice of court-shopping or venue-shopping that allowed patent trolls to file in areas where laws were most favorable to their claims.

The ruling was made in the case of TC Heartland LLC v. Kraft Heinz Co. TC Heartland successfully argued that the case, which pertained to alleged patent theft over flavored water, shouldn’t be held in Delaware, where Kraft Heinz is located, versus Illinois, where TC Heartland is based.

The court overturned a previous ruling from 2016 that confirmed the right to court-shop in patent cases, saying that specific venue rules in the Patent Act related to the case stand above the more general ones set out in a federal venue law when it comes to determining jurisdiction. “We therefore hold that a domestic corporation ‘resides’ only in its State of incorporation for purposes of the patent venue statute,” Justice Clarence Thomas stated in the opinion.

Court-shopping has long been a favored tactic by patent trolls, which are companies that obtain rights to one or more patents simply for the sake of being able to use those patents to sue others for breaching them, rather than for actually making a product. The most favored venue for patent trolls has long been the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas in the town of Tyler, which has long been seen as being favorable towards litigants in patent cases. The list of cases where the East Texas court ruled in favor in patent trolls is too long to list, but highlights include the ruling in October that found Apple Inc. liable to pay a company called VirnetX Holding Corp. $302.4 million in damages over use of its patented Internet security technology without permission.

“This Supreme Court ruling can help curb decades of misuse of the patent system by restricting a common tactic used by patent trolls — forum shopping,” Computer & Communications Industry Association President Ed Black said in a statement. “For too long patent trolls have relied on a combination of case load back up, high upfront legal costs, [and] favorable rules in courts like the Eastern District.”

The ruling itself could be open to appeal. Kraft Heinz said that although it was disappointed by the ruling, it did not believe it would affect the outcome of its overall lawsuit.

Photo: bludgeoner86/Flickr