National legal publication Law360 asked attorneys, including Adams and Reese Partner Ray Ferrera, to weigh in on the Supreme Court’s recent rulings in a pair of cases that the Federal Circuit's standards for awarding attorneys’ fees to prevailing parties in “unreasonable” patent infringement cases must be eased.
“Today’s ruling is a welcome development for corporate defendants in patent infringement actions,” said Ferrera, who serves as the Adams and Reese Intellectual Property and Technology Team Leader. “These cases relax the circumstances under which the exceptional case standard can be applied to meritless plaintiffs so that attorneys’ fees are more easily recovered. Today’s cases loosen the standard for a defendant requesting attorneys’ fees from proof by clear and convincing evidence that a plaintiff’s claims were objectively baseless and brought in subjective bad faith to a finding of unreasonableness within the discretion of the trial court. The legal standard on appeal is therefore changed to consideration of whether the trial court abused its discretion.”
Ferrera is a seasoned litigator, with first-chair experience at both the trial and appellate levels. He represents major corporate interests in a wide variety of intellectual property, tax, licensing and other business matters. He is registered to practice before the United States Patent and Trademark Office.