SAN FRANCISCO — Is annoying a district judge enough to trigger attorney fee shifting under the Lanham Act, or do you have to behave “outrageously”?
That won’t be the formal test adopted by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit when it rules on an $836,000 fee award in a business defamation dispute between Arizona software companies. But the distinction was on the mind of one of the judges Monday as the Ninth Circuit became the latest court to hash over the meaning of an “exceptional case.”
