Chicago IP Attorney & Lawyer : R. David Donoghue : Chicago IP Litigation Blog

Hyperquest, Inc. v. N’Site Solutions, Inc., et al., No. 08 C 483, --F. Supp. 2d--, 2008 WL 2446206 (N.D. Ill. Jun. 18, 2008) (Shadur, Sen. J.)

Judge Shadur granted defendants’ motion for attorney’s fees pursuant to 17 U.S.C. § 505, after previously dismissing plaintiffs’ copyright claims for lack of standing – click here for the Blog’s post about that opinion. Plaintiff agreed that defendants were not § 505 “prevailing parties” because the case was dismissed for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. But the Court explained that its opinion and the parties’ underlying briefs used imprecise language, citing an Abraham Lincoln pearl of wisdom:

If you call a tail a leg, how many legs has a dog? Five? No, calling a tail a let don’t make it a leg.

The case was not dismissed for lack of a properly registered copyright (subject matter jurisdiction), but because plaintiff lacked sufficient right to assert the copyright (standing). Because the case was dismissed with prejudice for lack of standing, defendants were prevailing parties and an attorney’s fee award was warranted.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

Telewizja Polska USA, Inc. v. Echostar Satellite Corp., No. 04 C 3293, Slip Op. (N.D. Ill. Oct. 30, 2007) (Guzman, J.). 

Judge Guzman adopted Magistrate Judge Keys’s Report and Recommendation in its entirety, awarding plaintiff all of the approximately $800,000 in attorney’s fees and costs plaintiff sought pursuant to the fee-shifting provision in the parties’ agreement and Fed. R. Civ. P. 54(d). At trial, plaintiff sought approximately $2.8M for its breach of contract claim and approximately $5.8M for its unjust enrichment claim – the claims were plead in the alternative. The jury awarded plaintiff approximately $1.4M on the breach of contract claim. The jury also awarded defendant $1 in compensatory damages and approximately $18,000 in punitive damages on defendant’s defamation counterclaim. Defendant argued that plaintiff was not the prevailing party, as required by Rule 54(d) and, therefore, should not be awarded its fees and costs or, at least, should be awarded a reduced amount.

But the Court held that plaintiff prevailed by winning one of its major claims, even though the contract claim was worth less than the unjust enrichment claim, based upon plaintiff’s analysis. Additionally, the $1.4M jury award based upon a $7M demand was sufficient to be considered prevailing. The Court noted that parties have been considered prevailing when a jury awarded even 10% of plaintiff’s demand. The Court also suggested that the outcome might have been different if plaintiff had lost on the claim which created the Court’s federal question jurisdiction. But in this case, jurisdiction was based upon diversity. Finally, the Court denied defendant’s request to reduce counsel’s hours or rates because defendant previously agreed not to challenge the reasonableness of the fees. 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks