Today, the U.S. Supreme Court issued two opinions (Octane Fitness and Highmark) that create a more flexible, deferential standard for determining what constitutes an “exceptional” patent case in which a district court has discretion to award reasonable attorney’s fees to the prevailing party. The Court rejected the Federal Circuit’s rigid test that required
Exceptional Case
Patent Alert: Failure to Test Accused Products for Infringement Does Not Justify Award of Attorneys’ Fees under Section 285 (Checkpoint v. All-Tag)
By Essential Patent Blog on
Posted in Patent Alerts
Today, March 25, 2013, in Checkpoint Systems, Inc. v. All-Tag Security S.A., No. 2012-1085, the Federal Circuit (Newman, Lourie, and Schall) reversed both the district court’s award of $6.6 million in attorneys’ fees and the determination of an “exceptional case” under Section 285 of the Patent Act. The awarding of attorneys’ fees has received
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