The U.S. Supreme Court’s recent ruling in Octane Fitness v. Icon Health and Fitness is widely expected to make it easier to put losing patent plaintiffs on the hook for attorney fees. But easier doesn’t mean easy, as Judge William Bryson of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit made clear on Monday in an IP fight unfolding in East Texas.
Bryson, sitting by designation in U.S. district court in Marshall, reaffirmed a prior ruling that Globus Medical Inc. isn’t entitled to recover attorney fees it shelled out successfully fighting a disgruntled inventor’s patent claims. Globus’ lawyers at Duane Morris had urged Bryson to reconsider that ruling in light of the Supreme Court’s April 29 decision in Octane. (Hat tip to Texas-based blogger and practitioner Michael Smith.)
