Case Exceptional For Maintaining Suit After Adverse Claim Construction Ruling

Addressing appeals of two separate actions out of the same district court, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed the vast majority of the lower court's rulings in both cases, finding that the nature by which plaintiff conducted the litigations supported a finding of an exceptional case. Taurus IP, LLC v. DaimlerChrysler Corp., Case Nos. 08-1462, -1463, -1464, -1465 (Fed. Cir. Aug. 9, 2013) (Schall, J.)

In two separate actions, Taurus accused defendants' websites of infringing a patent directed to a graphical computer interface where "users" created hierarchical relationships between data in a database. In one of those actions, the court issued a claim construction ruling favoring defendants, and then entered summary judgment of no infringement because everyday internet web surfers are not "users" capable of creating hierarchical relationships as required by the claims. The district court also concluded