Chief Judge Lynn Awards Attorney’s Fees to Microsoft and AT&T in Case Where Plaintiff Did Not Own Asserted Patents

Originally published by Steven Callahan.

On September 2, 2016, Chief Judge Lynn issued a decision in Raniere v. Microsoft (available here) finding that AT&T and Microsoft were entitled to recover their attorney’s fees from the plaintiff under 35 U.S.C. § 285. Section 285 provides that, in patent cases, “[t]he court in exceptional cases may award reasonable attorney fees to the prevailing party.” The fee award was based on plaintiff not owning the asserted patents and, according to the Court, engaging in deliberately misleading conduct:

Defendants challenged Plaintiff’s ownership of the asserted patents and pleaded lack of standing as an affirmative defense in their respective answers. The Court also questioned Plaintiff’s standing early in the litigation and gave Plaintiff multiple opportunities to establish his ownership interest in the asserted patents. Despite these opportunities, Plaintiff failed to establish that he owns the patents in suit. Further, the Court found that Plaintiff engaged in deliberately misleading conduct to obscure and complicate the standing issue.

Defendants estimated that they incurred over $1 million in fees and non-taxable costs. Chief Judge Lynn ordered Defendants to submit to the Court evidence of their reasonable attorney’s fees and non-taxable costs, and provided that the plaintiff could object to the specific amount of the requested fees.

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