US appeals court upholds $5 mln Amazon attorneys’ fees win in patent fight
The logo of Amazon is seen on the company’s logistics centre in Boves, near Amiens, France, April 8, 2022. REUTERS/Christian Hartmann Acquire Licensing Rights
- Amazon won fees after court rejected patent claims against its customers
- Federal Circuit said ‘baseless’ case justified fees in split decision
Nov 3 (Reuters) – The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed on Friday that patent owner PersonalWeb Technologies owes Amazon (AMZN.O) nearly $5.2 million in attorneys’ fees stemming from lawsuits it brought against the tech giant and its customers.
In a 2-1 decision, the appeals court agreed with a California federal court that PersonalWeb’s claims were “objectively baseless” and litigated unreasonably.
Representatives for PersonalWeb and Amazon did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the decision.
PersonalWeb first sued Amazon in Texas in 2011 for allegedly infringing patents related to data processing. It dropped the lawsuit after the court interpreted the patents in a way that favored Amazon.
PersonalWeb sued dozens of Amazon Web Services customers in 2018 for infringing the same patents in cases that were later consolidated in Northern California federal court. The court ruled against PersonalWeb, citing the 1907 U.S. Supreme Court case Kessler v. Eldred, in which the justices barred patent owners that unsuccessfully sued manufacturers from suing their customers over the same product.
The Federal Circuit upheld the decision on appeal in 2020. The Supreme Court rejected PersonalWeb’s request to hear the case last year.
The California court awarded Amazon nearly $5.2 million in attorneys’ fees in 2020. It said PersonalWeb’s claims were “clearly untenable,” based in part on Kessler. The court also said the company “unnecessarily prolonged” the litigation and “frequently changed its infringement positions to overcome the hurdle of the day.”
PersonalWeb appealed the attorneys’ fees decision, arguing among other things that Kessler’s reach “had not been a well-settled issue” at the time.
But U.S. Circuit Judge Jimmie Reyna agreed with the lower court on Friday that PersonalWeb’s arguments were “ill-supported and should not have been brought.” Reyna said that PersonalWeb was “not being punished for its lack of success on its Kessler argument” and “wove the very net in which it now stands.”
U.S. Circuit Judge Timothy Dyk noted in a dissent that the U.S. Solicitor General supported PersonalWeb’s position at the Supreme Court. He said he was “at a loss to understand how making an argument that the Solicitor General agreed was correct” and “a matter of first impression in our court” could lead to a fee award.
The case is In re PersonalWeb Technologies LLC, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, No. 21-1858.
For PersonalWeb: Michael Sherman of Stubbs Alderton & Markiles
For Amazon: David Hadden of Fenwick & West
Read more:
Fed Circuit tosses data storage patent claims against Amazon
U.S. Supreme Court won’t review Amazon, websites’ win in patent case
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Reporting by Blake Brittain in Washington
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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