On October 13, 2020, the District of Delaware issued a memorandum opinion in Rothschild Digital Confirmation LLC v. CompanyCam, Inc. (available here). The Court ordered the Rothschild entity to pay the patent-infringement defendant’s attorney’s fees after it found Rothschild’s loss to be “exceptional” under 35 U.S.C. § 285:
Here, as noted above, Plaintiff’s case with respect to the § 101 issues was relatively weak. . . . [I]n addition, there is a pattern of troubling litigation conduct. Plaintiff has asserted the ’872 Patent (and apparently others) numerous times against a broad swathe of defendants. Almost all of those cases failed to advance beyond the pleadings. Moreover, here, after hearing the Court’s ruling as to the ’872 Patent, Plaintiff unilaterally dismissed its case against Defendant before the Court’s order was entered and then prolonged litigation against defendants in other cases before giving up when called to face the Court. Thus, in light of the totality of the circumstances, the Court finds this case to be exceptional.
There is a lesson here: if your patent is invalidated as to one defendant under Section 101, do not tell the Court that your other cases alleging infringement of the same patent “should proceed notwithstanding the Court’s ruling.”