{"id":2016,"date":"2018-04-18T21:32:14","date_gmt":"2018-04-19T01:32:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/?p=2016"},"modified":"2018-04-22T21:32:51","modified_gmt":"2018-04-23T01:32:51","slug":"it-costs-440000-to-dismiss-a-case-for-lack-of-standing-but-plaintiff-had-to-pay-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/?p=2016","title":{"rendered":"It Costs $440,000 to Dismiss a Case for Lack of Standing, but Plaintiff Had to Pay it"},"content":{"rendered":"

In Raniere v. Microsoft Corp.<\/a>, [2017-1400, 2017-1401] (April 18, 2018), the Federal Circuit held that\u00a0the district court did not err in finding that\u00a0Microsoft and AT&T were the prevailing parties under 35 U.S.C. \u00a7 285\u00a0\u00a0(2012), and did not abuse its discretion in awarding\u00a0attorneys’ fees and costs.<\/p>\n

Raniere sued for infringement of a total of five patents (U.S. Patent Nos.\u00a06,373,936, 6,819,752, 7,215,752,\u00a07,391,856, and 7,844,041), and\u00a0Microsoft and AT&T challenged Raniere’s standing.\u00a0 Rainiere and the other inventors assigned the underlying inventions to Global Technologies, Inc.\u00a0 In May 1996, GTI was administratively dissolved.\u00a0 In December 2014,\u00a0Raniere executed a document on\u00a0behalf of GTI, claiming to be its president and \u201csole owner,\u201d that purportedly\u00a0transferred the asserted patents from GTI to\u00a0himself.<\/p>\n

Microsoft challenged Raniere’s standing, and the district court ordered Raniere\u00a0to produce documentation proving his representations. The district court found that the documents produced by Raniere\u00a0failed to indicate that Raniere had an\u00a0ownership interest in GTI at any time or that Raniere had\u00a0the right to assign the patents at issue from GTI to himself.\u00a0\u00a0Given Raniere\u2019s failure to produce evidence\u00a0to support his standing, the district court permitted\u00a0Appellees to conduct limited discovery into the standing\u00a0issue and stayed the cases pending its resolution.\u00a0 The parties suspended discovery when they began\u00a0negotiating terms of settlement, but Raniere refused
\nto finalize the settlement. AT&T then filed a motion\u00a0for an order to show cause why the action should not be\u00a0dismissed under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 41(b) for
\nlack of standing.<\/p>\n

The district court found that Raniere\u2019s testimony\u00a0surrounding the alleged transfer contradicted Raniere\u2019s\u00a0earlier representations\u00a0and was \u201cwholly incredible and untruthful. Moreover,\u00a0the district court found that Raniere\u2019s conduct demonstrated \u201ca clear
\nhistory of delay and contumacious conduct.\u201d\u00a0 In a subsequent fees motion the district court award fees.\u00a0\u00a0AT&T submitted evidence that\u00a0it incurred $395,050.30 in attorney fees and $13,917.10 in\u00a0costs, and Microsoft submitted evidence that it incurred
\n$176,166.40 in attorney fees and $2,073.68 in costs.\u00a0\u00a0The district court found Appellees were not\u00a0entitled to fees spent on certain matters after the district\u00a0court issued its stay order. And, the district court reduced\u00a0the lodestar for both Appellees by twenty percent due to\u00a0duplication of efforts between Microsoft and AT&T attorneys.\u00a0In view of these determinations, the district court\u00a0awarded $300,295.71 to AT&T and $143,719.26 to Microsoft\u00a0in attorney fees and costs.<\/p>\n

The Federal Circuit agreed that the Appellees were the prevailing parties, and that the district court did not abuse its discretion finding the case exceptional and awarding fees. The Federal Circuit, noting that the district court was in a\u00a0better position to determine whether a case is exceptional, had no reason to disturb the district court’s well-reasoned determination.\u00a0 The Federal Circuit also concluded that the district\u00a0court\u2019s discretionary determination of fees and costs is\u00a0well-supported and reflects the court\u2019s careful consideration\u00a0of the relevant billing rates, invoices, and records.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In Raniere v. Microsoft Corp., [2017-1400, 2017-1401] (April 18, 2018), the Federal Circuit held that\u00a0the district court did not err in finding that\u00a0Microsoft and AT&T were the prevailing parties under 35 U.S.C. \u00a7 285\u00a0\u00a0(2012), and did not abuse its discretion … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2016","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-attorneys-fees"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2016","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2016"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2016\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2017,"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2016\/revisions\/2017"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2016"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2016"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2016"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}