{"id":3561,"date":"2023-11-03T20:31:00","date_gmt":"2023-11-04T01:31:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/?p=3561"},"modified":"2023-12-12T15:41:09","modified_gmt":"2023-12-12T21:41:09","slug":"deference-given-to-5-million-attorneys-fee-award-by-district-court-that-lived-with-the-case-and-its-counsel-for-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/?p=3561","title":{"rendered":"Deference Given to $5 Million Attorneys Fee Award by District Court that &#8220;Lived with [the] Case and its Counsel for Years&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><em>In re: Personalweb Technologies LLC<\/em>, <a href=\"https:\/\/cafc.uscourts.gov\/opinions-orders\/21-1858.OPINION.11-3-2023_2216942.pdf\">[2021-1858, 2021-1859, 2021-1860]<\/a> (November 3, 2023) the Federal Circuit affirmed a $5,187,203.99 award of attorneys\u2019 fees against Personalweb.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In 2018, PersonalWeb asserted the True Name patents against eighty-five Amazon customers (the \u201ccustomer cases\u201d) across the country for their use of Amazon S3.\u00a0 After summary judgment was granted against PersonalWeb on two different patents, the district court granted defendant\u2019s motion for attorneys\u2019 fees and costs under 35 U.S.C. \u00a7 285, determining that the case was exceptional.\u00a0 Specifically, the district court found that:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>PersonalWeb\u2019s infringement claims related to the first product were objectively baseless and not reasonable when brought because they were barred due to a final judgment entered in the Texas Action.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>PersonalWeb frequently changed its infringement positions to overcome the hurdle of the day;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>PersonalWeb unnecessarily prolonged this litigation after claim construction foreclosed its infringement theories;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>PersonalWeb\u2019s conduct and positions regarding the customer cases were unreasonable; and<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>PersonalWeb submitted declarations that it should have known were not accurate.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThe court in exceptional cases may award reasonable attorney fees to the prevailing party.\u201d 35 U.S.C. \u00a7 285. To determine whether a case is exceptional under \u00a7 285, courts consider \u201cthe totality of the circumstances.\u201d&nbsp; An exceptional case is \u201csimply one that stands out from others with respect to the substantive strength of a party\u2019s litigating position (considering both the governing law and the facts of the case) or the unreasonable manner in which the case was litigated.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Federal Circuit said that the district court lived with this case and its counsel for years. It thoroughly reviewed the totality of the circumstances to find that this case both lacked \u201csubstantive strength\u201d and was litigated in an \u201cunreasonable manner.\u201d\u00a0 The Court saw no clear error in law or fact by the district court in arriving at these conclusions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The district court took steps to be fair. For early motion practice, such as the motion to stay and motion for preliminary injunction, the district court recognized the efficiency of these tactics, stating Amazon \u201cwould have undoubtedly incurred even more legal fees in actively defending the menagerie of customer cases.\u201d The Federal Circuit noted that the district court reduced Amazon\u2019s requested fees by 25% to account for \u201cotherwise necessary activities\u201d after explaining PersonalWeb\u2019s \u201cabandoned infringement theories serially dominated the case, leading to unnecessary work\u00a0across multiple categories of litigation.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In re: Personalweb Technologies LLC, [2021-1858, 2021-1859, 2021-1860] (November 3, 2023) the Federal Circuit affirmed a $5,187,203.99 award of attorneys\u2019 fees against Personalweb. In 2018, PersonalWeb asserted the True Name patents against eighty-five Amazon customers (the \u201ccustomer cases\u201d) across the &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/?p=3561\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/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-3561","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\/3561","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=3561"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3561\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3562,"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3561\/revisions\/3562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}