Violating antitrust law through a fraud on the Patent Office will cost 3M Company more than $26 million in damages, almost all of it in legal fees to its adversary in the patent litigation.

The dispute, TransWeb LLC v. 3M Innovative Properties Co., was over two patents for a filtration membrane used in industrial respirators in oily environments such as shipyards—patents that 3M was found to have obtained fraudulently.