Advanced Video Technologies LLC v. HTC Corporation, et al.

Rule 19 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure provides that where a necessary party to a lawsuit has not been joined, “the court must order that the person be made a party.” The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled below that involuntary joinder under Rule 19 simply does not apply to patent cases due to a “substantive right” that a co-owner of a patent can impede the right of another co-owner from suing infringers in a patent infringement lawsuit. The majority opinion continues a long trend in which the Federal Circuit ignores Supreme Court precedent, as well as the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure on the basis that these laws and precedents somehow do not apply to patent law. The question presented is: Did the Federal Circuit properly create an exception to Rule 19 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure in patent law, requiring a dismissal of a case in which Rule 19 would otherwise mandate joinder of an absent patent owner as an involuntary plaintiff?