Parting Shot: Mandamus Sends USC v. Google from Judge Albright’s Austin Docket to N.D. Cal.

by Dennis Crouch

Judge Alan Albright left the bench at the end of August and is now a partner at A&O Shearman. The Federal Circuit has since granted mandamus against one of his final venue rulings, ordering USC's infringement suit against Google transferred from Austin to the Northern District of California. In re Google LLC, No. 2026-157 (Fed. Cir. Oct. 6, 2026) (nonprecedential). The per curiam order from Judges Dyk, Mayer, and Stark may be the last in a long series of transfer orders that began during Covid times. See In re Adobe Inc., 823 F. App'x 929 (Fed. Cir. 2020).

USC sued in October 2025 on two patents listing former USC professor Michael Naimark as the sole inventor. U.S. Patent Nos. 8,026,929 and 8,264,504. The claims cover posing user-uploaded 2D photographs as aligned overlays within a pre-existing 3D model, and USC accuses the display of user-contributed imagery in Google Earth, Maps, and Street View. Naimark was also on the MIT team that built the late-1970s Aspen Movie Map, an interactive videodisc map often described as a forerunner of Street View. USC is in Los Angeles, Google is in Mountain View, and Naimark lives in Northern California. USC pointed to Google's Austin offices as the Texas connection, but the reality is that the case was filed in Texas in order to appear before a more patent-friendly judge.

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