Addressing an award of attorneys' fees under 35 USC §
285, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit upheld a
district court finding that the case was exceptional, but found
that the district court failed to articulate a causal relationship
between misconduct and the fee award. In Re: Rembrandt
Technologies LP Patent Litigation, Case No. 17-1784 (Fed. Cir. Aug. 15, 2018)
(O'Malley, J). The Federal Circuit vacated the district
court's fee award and remanded for the district court to
conduct the appropriate analysis.
The appeal derived from a multitude of patent infringement
actions that Rembrandt Technologies, LLC, and Rembrandt
Technologies, L.P., filed in the mid-2000s against dozens of cable
companies, cable equipment manufacturers and broadcast networks.
Ultimately the district court found that the defendants did not
infringe the patents-in-suit, and subsequently most of the
defendants filed a motion requesting attorneys' fees under
§ 285.
