On December 17, 2015, Judge Rodney Gilstrap of the Eastern District of Texas awarded attorneys’ fees under 35 U.S.C. section 285 to defendants in a set of consolidated patent lawsuits initiated by eDekka LLC. 12/17 Order at 1. A prolific patent assertion entity, eDekka filed more than 200 lawsuits in 2014 and 2015 in the Eastern District of Texas, asserting a single patent, U.S. Patent No. 6,266,674, against numerous online retailers. eDekka claimed that these retailers had infringed the ’674 patent by offering a “shopping cart feature” on their e-commerce websites. The court had issued an earlier order September 21, 2015, in which it found the ’674 patent invalid for claiming unpatentable subject matter under Alice Corp. Pty. Ltd. v. CLS Bank International, 134 S. Ct. 2347 (2014).  9/21 Order at 1. The September 21, 2015 order formed the basis for the court’s December 17 ruling awarding attorneys’ fees.
Continue Reading In a First, E.D. Tex. Finds Plaintiff’s Massive Litigation Campaign Asserting Patent Invalid Under Alice ‘Exceptional,’ and Awards Defendants Attorneys’ Fees