United States District Court for the Northern District of California

The United States District Court for the Northern District of California, cited as N.D. Cal., is a federal trial court headquartered in San Francisco that also holds court in Eureka, Oakland and San Jose. Its district covers fifteen counties, from Del Norte and Humboldt in the north to Monterey and Santa Cruz in the south, including Alameda, San Francisco, San Mateo and Santa Clara, and appeals go to the Ninth Circuit. Congress divided California into a Northern and a Southern District by the Act of September 28, 1850. The two were merged into a single District of California in 1866, the Southern District was re-created in 1886, and in 1966 the Eastern and Central Districts were carved out of the Northern and Southern Districts. Because it covers San Francisco and Silicon Valley, the court has become the presumptive destination for major federal lawsuits against Big Tech defendants, including class actions and multi-district litigation involving patent, copyright, antitrust, securities and cybersecurity law.