It's a sad day here at IP/DE. Over the past year, we've milked at an astonishing 8 posts out of the saga of Rein Tech, Inc. v. Mueller Systems, LLC. The case has everything, protective order violations, a plaintiff acting as his own expert, sanctions, fees. You can't blame us for covering it.
Well you could, but we won't hear you, since we're a blog.
But sadly, this week brought us one of the last developments we're likely to see in the case, with the Court awarding fees to the defendant incurred in bringing the various protective order disputes.
The defendant ended up seeking a little less than 40K in fees and costs. The plaintiff, unsurprisingly, complained that the fees were excessive.
Judge Noreika ultimately ended up granting the vast majority of the amount requested. The only issue was a pair of block-billed entries around the time of the hearing, both of which simply stated "attend hearing related to violations of the protective order and [] travel [to/from] Delaware."
Judge Noreika denied the fees for these entries noting that they "appear to include non-working travel time to and from a hearing." Interestingly, however, the Order does not actually state that the defendant could not have collected fees for travel time, it merely noted that "Defendant has not argued that it may recover fees for non-working travel time" and declined to bill the plaintiff accordingly.
And so we here bid goodbye for now to one of our favorite cases from recent years. There is still some hope for a further chapter though. There was yet a further sanctions hearing just a few weeks ago which the Court adjourned to a later date. We're keeping an eye on it and will keep you all in the loop.
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