May 10, 2012 -  On May 4th, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) vacated a district court’s order denying Oasis Research [NPE] defendants’ motion to sever and transfer and directed the district court to reconsider the defendants’ motions. (The CAFC also granted  Carbonite, Iron Mountain, GoDaddy and Pro Softnet’s motion to join the petition filed by defendant EMC.) The CAFC concluded that the district court applied an incorrect test in denying the motion to sever. The defendants had sought orders to sever and transfer in the case arguing that there was no “concert of action” and the claims against them did not arise out of the same occurrence or transaction as is required for joinder. Oasis had argued that although the asserted patents, “cover a broad range of technologies, the accused infringement in this case is limited to online backup/storage service,” and that “each defendant offers a similar commercial online backup/storage service.” The CAFC concluded that the district court did not properly apply the “transaction-or-occurrence” test of Rule 20.  According to the CAFC’s decision, “We agree that joinder is not appropriate where different products or processes are involved…But the sameness of the accused products or processes is not sufficient…Unless there is an actual link between the facts underlying each claim of infringement, independently developed products using differently sourced parts are not part of the same transaction, even if they are otherwise coincidentally identical.” [Oasis Research, LLC v. ADrive LLC, No. 4:10-cv-435]