Federal Circuit Bar Association Study So Concludes.
We have posted before about the U.S. Supreme Court’s decisions in Octane/Highmark (134 S.Ct. 1749 and 134 S.Ct. 1744 (2014)), where district judges were given more discretion in determining if patent cases were exceptional for purposes of awarding attorney’s fees to prevailing, accused infringers. A recent Federal Circuit Bar Association study has concluded that post-Octane/Highmark fee recoveries have surged after these important decisions.
For the first 3 months of 2015, accused infringers were granted in part 50% of fee requests following the two high court decisions, while they also were granted 36% in part of fee requests period for the May 1, 2014-March 30, 2015 time – all compared to 13% grants in the year prior to these two decisions.
We provide a hyperlink to the basic conclusions from this study.