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> Thanks to the efforts of Lee Cheng and his legal team, the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals ordered a trial court to reconsider its earlier denial of Newegg’s

> Thanks to the efforts of Lee Cheng and his legal team, the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals ordered a trial court to reconsider its earlier denial of Newegg’s request for attorneys’ fees and costs in the patent infringement lawsuit brought on by SUS. Wait, so what did the trial court conclude? Are they making the troll pay or not? I feel like I'm missing something? Also, isn't it worrying that they had to appeal in the first place?

jessaustin 12y ago
IANAL: The trial court had found for Newegg on the infringement case, but had not taken the additional step of awarding attorney's fees to Newegg. The appeals court has now recommended that the trial court take that additional step. The appeals court doesn't have time to wade through reams of legal invoices. Actually the trial court may have been trying to avoid that as well, but now it has no choice. It's my impression that courts don't want to award attorney's fees to civil defendants very often, because that would discourage litigation. I think it's reserved for obviously "frivolous" cases. Therefore the need to appeal doesn't seem like a problem.
- yxhuvud 12y ago
  Living in a country where the default is that the loser pays (within reason), I must wonder: Why is discouraging litigation a bad thing?
  - ngoede 12y ago
    The balance to this is that corporations and rich individuals already have far more money to spend on a legal defense that further discouragement makes it that less likely that regular individuals will be able to use the legal system to redress civil wrongs that those parties have done to them. I.E. the plot of the show Leverage.
  - mikeash 12y ago
    Litigation isn't inherently bad. It all depends on how it's used. You don't want a policy that makes life hard for patent trolls to also make it impossible for, say, a person who's horribly disfigured in a car crash from suing the company for a legitimate design defect that caused the crash.
  - jessaustin 12y ago
    Siblings have plausible explanations. Another reason, however, is that we have so many lawyers, and they must be employed somehow, otherwise one of them might take the judge's job. Why not employ the teeming masses in litigation and/or the prevention of litigation?
    - rthomas6 12y ago
      Uh, because employing the teeming masses in production of goods that improve the quality of life is better than jobs for their own sake.

jessaustin 12y ago

IANAL: The trial court had found for Newegg on the infringement case, but had not taken the additional step of awarding attorney's fees to Newegg. The appeals court has now recommended that the trial court take that additional step. The appeals court doesn't have time to wade through reams of legal invoices. Actually the trial court may have been trying to avoid that as well, but now it has no choice. It's my impression that courts don't want to award attorney's fees to civil defendants very often, because that would discourage litigation. I think it's reserved for obviously "frivolous" cases. Therefore the need to appeal doesn't seem like a problem.

yxhuvud 12y ago
Living in a country where the default is that the loser pays (within reason), I must wonder: Why is discouraging litigation a bad thing?
- ngoede 12y ago
  The balance to this is that corporations and rich individuals already have far more money to spend on a legal defense that further discouragement makes it that less likely that regular individuals will be able to use the legal system to redress civil wrongs that those parties have done to them. I.E. the plot of the show Leverage.
- mikeash 12y ago
  Litigation isn't inherently bad. It all depends on how it's used. You don't want a policy that makes life hard for patent trolls to also make it impossible for, say, a person who's horribly disfigured in a car crash from suing the company for a legitimate design defect that caused the crash.
- jessaustin 12y ago
  Siblings have plausible explanations. Another reason, however, is that we have so many lawyers, and they must be employed somehow, otherwise one of them might take the judge's job. Why not employ the teeming masses in litigation and/or the prevention of litigation?
  - rthomas6 12y ago
    Uh, because employing the teeming masses in production of goods that improve the quality of life is better than jobs for their own sake.