Federal Circuit disposition — 26-146

NOTE: This order is nonprecedential.
United States Court of Appeals
for the Federal Circuit
______________________
In Re AMAZON.COM SERVICES LLC,
Petitioner
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2026-146
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On Petition for Writ of Mandamus to the United States
District Court for the Eastern District of Texas in Nos.
2:25-cv-00897-JRG-RSP, 2:25-cv-00961-JRG-RSP, 2:25-cv-
00962-JRG-RSP, and 2:25-cv-00963-JRG-RSP, Judge J.
Rodney Gilstrap.
______________________
ON PETITION
______________________
Before CHEN , STOLL, and STARK , Circuit Judges.
PER C URIAM.
O R D E R
Amazon.com Services LLC (Amazon) petitions for a
writ of mandamus directing the United States District
Court for the Eastern District of Texas (“EDTX”) to stay
these patent infringement proceedings. Headwater Re-
search LLC (Headwater) opposes. Amazon replies. For the
reasons below, we deny the petition.
On August 27, 2025, Headwater filed two suits at the
center of this petition. It sued Google LLC in the United
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IN RE AMAZON. COM SERVICES LLC 2
States District Court for the Western District of Texas al-
leging Google’s Firebase Cloud Messaging (“FCM”) system
infringes U.S. Patent No. 9,198,117 (’117 patent). We refer
to this case, which has now been transferred to the North-
ern District of California, as the Google case. On the same
day, Headwater also filed a complaint in EDTX alleging
Amazon’s own push messaging system (ADM) infringes the
’117 patent and U.S. Patent No. 8,667,571 (’571 patent).
We refer to this case as the Amazon case. Headwater also
alleged Amazon infringes the ’117 patent through its use of
Google’s FCM in combination with Amazon’s proprietary
software.
Amazon moved to stay the Amazon case pending the
Google case, invoking the “customer-suit exception” to the
first-to-file rule. Of particular note here, Amazon moved to
stay the entire case, noting only in a footnote that “[i]f the
Court is not inclined to stay [the claims directed to Ama-
zon’s ADM product], Amazon respectfully requests that the
Court at least sever and stay the FCM claims.” Appx576
n.7. On April 17, 2026, the magistrate judge recommended
denying Amazon’s request to stay the litigation. On May
14, 2026, the district court adopted the magistrate judge’s
order over Amazon’s objections. This petition followed.
A district court has considerable discretion in manag-
ing its own docket, including when to stay proceedings. See
Landis v. N. Am. Co., 299 U.S. 248, 254–55 (1936). On
mandamus, we will not disturb a stay determination ab-
sent a clear and indisputable right to relief. Cheney v. U.S.
Dist. Ct. for D.C., 542 U.S. 367, 380–81 (2004). The cus-
tomer suit exception is meant to resolve litigation involving
the “true defendant” of the infringement allegations in fa-
vor of other co-pending suits where the alleged infringer is
simply the customer of the “true defendant.” See Katz v.
Lear Siegler, Inc., 909 F.2d 1459, 1464 (Fed. Cir. 1990).
Here, Amazon has not shown a clear and indisputable
right to a stay by invoking the customer-suit exception. A
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IN RE AMAZON. COM SERVICES LLC 3
stay is not compelled in this situation, where the plaintiff’s
allegations involve two asserted patents, one of which is
not asserted in the competing Google case. Further, Head-
water asserts the ’117 patent under two theories of in-
fringement, where one accused system—ADM—relates
only to Amazon, and the other system at least invokes some
Amazon-specific applications and software.
The district court also considered the traditional stay
factors based on the record before it and found that a stay
was inappropriate, in part because the outcome of the
Google case would not sufficiently simplify the Amazon
case. We are not prepared to say that conclusion was so far
outside the district court’s considerable discretion in man-
aging its own docket to take the extraordinary step of issu-
ing mandamus. Nor are we prepared to say Amazon has
shown a clear and indisputable right to severing and stay-
ing the FCM claims under the circumstances in which it
comes before us. See In re ZTE Corp., No. 2022-122, 2022
WL 1419605, at *2 (Fed. Cir. May 5, 2022) (citations omit-
ted) (finding petitioner who raised argument “in a one-line
footnote . . . has not shown a clear right to have arguments
raised in such a manner considered”).
Accordingly,
IT IS O RDERED THAT:
The petition is denied.
August 3, 2026
Date
FOR THE C OURT
Case: 26-146 Document: 13 Page: 3 Filed: 08/03/2026

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