denis-linine-shutterstock-com-microsoft-
6 September 2016Patents

Microsoft and AT&T granted $1.1m fees in patent suit

Microsoft and telecoms company AT&T have been granted more than $1.1 million in attorneys’ fees after succeeding in a patent suit against an inventor.

Keith Raniere had claimed that the companies had infringed his software patents in February last year. The patents concerned were US numbers 6,373,936; 6,819,752; 7,215,752; 7,391,856; and 7,844,041.

The order was filed at the US District Court for the Northern District of Texas, Dallas Division, on September 2.

Chief Judge Barbara Lynn said that the case was “exceptional” because it “stands out from others with respect to the unreasonable manner in which it was litigated”.

She added that Raniere’s conduct throughout the litigation, “culminating in his untruthful testimony at the hearing on the motion to dismiss, demonstrates a pattern of obfuscation and bad faith”.

Section 285 of the US Code authorises district courts to award reasonable attorneys’ fees to the prevailing party in patent litigation in exceptional cases.

AT&T estimated its fees at $935,300, while Microsoft cited $202,000, and the court granted these amounts.

In March this year, the court determined that Raniere failed to establish that he owned the patents, and granted the defendants’ motion to dismiss.

Lynn added: “Plaintiff’s conduct required defendants to expend significant resources to oppose plaintiff’s arguments, which the court now finds were made in bad faith to vexat iously multiply these proceedings and avoid early dismissal.”

Already registered?

Login to your account

To request a FREE 2-week trial subscription, please signup.
NOTE - this can take up to 48hrs to be approved.

Two Weeks Free Trial

For multi-user price options, or to check if your company has an existing subscription that we can add you to for FREE, please email Adrian Tapping at atapping@newtonmedia.co.uk


More on this story

Patents
10 February 2017   Microsoft has revealed plans to use its patent portfolio to help protect cloud customers from patent litigation.