The Medicines Co. v. Mylan Inc., No. 11 C 1285, Slip Op. (N.D. Ill. Oct. 30, 2017) (St. Eve, J.).

Judge St. Eve granted in part defendants’ bill of costs awarding $217k in this ANDA patent dispute.

Defendants were the prevailing party because they were determined not to infringe either of plaintiff’s patents. In light of that, they were due their costs. Of particular note, the Court held as follows:

  • The Court awarded $1,021 in hourly service fees, at the maximum allowed of $55/hour, and the Federal Circuit’s $505 filing fee.
  • The Court awarded $27,090.30 for original deposition transcript fees and copies for the Court, but did not award the cost of rough transcripts. Defendants claimed they were required for motion practice, but those costs are beyond the scope of the rule.
  • Video depositions are recoverable where it is uncertain whether the witness will appear for trial; where the other side gets the video; or where the party is on the opposing party’s will call or may call list for trial. Because only one of defendants’ requested video depositions was not either sought by plaintiff or on the plaintiff’s will call or may call list, the Court awarded costs for all but that deposition, totaling $17,822.50.
  • Video depositions sought just for impeachment purposes were not awarded.
  • The Court awarded $9,816.08 in undisputed trial transcript fees.
  • The Court awarded $410 for obtaining copies of certified patents.
  • The Court awarded $14,911.98 in costs for seven sets of exhibit and witness binders for trial — one each for the Court, the Court’s law clerk, the court reporter, witnesses, defendants’ trial team and two copies for plaintiff. While only one copy for the opposing party would typically be taxable, in this case the parties had agreed to provide each other with two copies. Based upon the agreement, the Court taxed both.
  • The Court awarded e-discovery costs for conversion of documents into an appropriate form, Bates stamping, and confidentiality stamping (none of which were contested). The Court awarded costs for optical character recognition (“OCR”) of the documents. The Court also awarded other digital “copying costs” based upon defendants’ statement that they had excluded non-taxable human costs such as searching and organizing documents.
  • The Court awarded defendants’ half of their requested internal e-discovery costs because it could not determine whether all costs were appropriate based upon defendants’ records.
  • The Court awarded defendants the full amount requested for 48.75 hours of in-court trial technician services.