Aloft Media, LLC v. Yahoo! Inc. et al

Filing 39

Opposed MOTION to Change Venue by Yahoo! Inc., Google, Inc.. (Attachments: # 1 Saari Decl, # 2 Beard Decl, # 3 Exhibit No. 1, # 4 Exhibit No. 2, # 5 Exhibit No. 3, # 6 Exhibit No. 4, # 7 Exhibit No. 5, # 8 Exhibit No. 6, # 9 Exhibit No. 7, # 10 Exhibit No. 8, # 11 Exhibit No. 9, # 12 Weingaertner Decl, # 13 Text of Proposed Order)(Carroll, Otis)

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT EASTERN DISTRICT OF TEXAS TYLER DIVISION ALOFT MEDIA LLC, Plaintiff, v. YAHOO! INC., GOOGLE, INC., AND AOL LLC, Defendants. DECLARATION OF CHRIS P. SAARI IN SUPPORT OF DEFENDANTS' MOTION TO TRANSFER Case No. 6:08-cv-509 (LED)

I, Chris P. Saari, declare as follows: 1. I am an Engineering Manager at Yahoo! Inc., a Defendant in this action. I have

been employed at Yahoo! since October 2005. I have worked on the Yahoo! Messenger program since October 2005 and on its PC to PC voice calling feature ("voice feature") since September 2007. I am currently the Engineering Manager in charge of the voice feature and have been in this position since September 2007. Unless stated otherwise, I have personal knowledge of the facts set forth below, and if called as a witness, could and would competently testify thereto. 2. Yahoo! is headquartered at 701 First Avenue, Sunnyvale, California 94089 (the

"Sunnyvale headquarters"). 3. In addition to its Sunnyvale headquarters, Yahoo! has two large offices in Santa

Clara. Its Santa Clara offices are located at 2821 Mission College Boulevard, Santa Clara 95054 and at 4401 Great America Parkway, Santa Clara 95054 (collectively, the "Santa Clara campus"). Yahoo! also has an office at 475 Sansome Street, San Francisco, California 94111. 4. The Sunnyvale headquarters, the Santa Clara campus, and the San Francisco

office will be referred to collectively as the "Northern California offices." I understand that all of the Northern California offices are located within the Northern District of California. 5. of Texas. 6. A majority of Yahoo! employees that work on the Yahoo! Messenger program Yahoo! has no offices located within what I understand to be the Eastern District

(the "Messenger team") are located at Yahoo's Northern California offices. And, with the exception of a few quality assurance employees located in India, all of the Yahoo! employees that work on the voice feature of the Messenger program (the feature that I understand is alleged to infringe in this case) are located in the Northern California offices.

SAARI DECL. ISO DEFENDANTS' MOTION TO TRANSFER Case No. 6:08-cv-509 (LED)

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7.

No Yahoo! employee that works on the voice feature of the Messenger program

works or resides in Texas. One Yahoo! employee on the Messenger team is located in Austin, Texas. However, the employee in question does not work on the voice feature of the Messenger program. 8. Although subcontractors contribute to the voice feature of the Messenger

program, Yahoo! employees work directly with subcontractor employees that are located in the Northern District of California. 9. In particular, Yahoo! works with Global IP Solutions, Inc., a company that

provides the software module for the voice feature that encodes and decodes the voice signal during transmission. Yahoo! employees interface directly with a Global IP Solutions account service engineer located in San Francisco, California. The bulk of Global IP Solutions engineers who work on the relevant software module are located in Sweden. Global IP Solutions, Inc. is headquartered in San Francisco, California. 10. Yahoo! also works with Jajah Inc., a company that provides publicly-switched

telephone network termination services ("PSTN termination services") required to enable the voice feature to complete calls to publicly switched telephone numbers, as opposed to personal computers. Yahoo! employees interface directly with Jajah sales and marketing employees located in Mountain View, California. The bulk of Jajah engineers who work on the PSTN termination services are located in Israel. Jajah Inc. is headquartered in Mountain View, California. 11. Essentially all of Yahoo!'s business activities--such as product development,

sales, and marketing--relating to the Messenger program and its voice feature also take place at the Northern California offices.

SAARI DECL. ISO DEFENDANTS' MOTION TO TRANSFER Case No. 6:08-cv-509 (LED)

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