SAN FRANCISCO — PersonalWeb Technologies LLC will have to pay Google Inc. almost $124,000 in sanctions, after a U.S. magistrate judge found that PersonalWeb destroyed possibly relevant evidence in a patent infringement case it initiated.
The sanctions awarded Tuesday by U.S. Magistrate Judge Howard Lloyd are much lower than the almost $270,000 amount originally requested by defense attorneys for Google at Arnold & Porter. Though PersonalWeb was found to have engaged in spoliation, Lloyd found that there was no significant prejudice against Google and that the plaintiff destroyed emails primarily as a cost-cutting measure because of impending litigation.
