CAFC in Large Audience: nothing in § 285 or our case law precludes award of fees for entire litigation

From the case:


The district court did not abuse its considerable discretion
in awarding fees for the entire litigation. To
begin, nothing in § 285 or our case law precludes such an
award. See Homeland Housewares, LLC v. Sorensen Res.,
581 F. App’x 877, 881 (Fed. Cir. 2014) (non-precedential)
(not requiring the “granularity” of limiting “the award to
the costs that Homeland incurred in responding to specific
acts of litigation misconduct”). The district court concluded
that the factual bases for the exceptionality finding—
from the venue fight, to the unreasonable claim constructoins,
to the use of the privileged email—“permeated” the
entire litigation. As we have recognized, full fees may be
awarded in such circumstances. See Monolithic Power
Sys., Inc. v. O2 Micro Int’l Ltd., 726 F.3d 1359, 1369 (Fed.
Cir. 2013) (affirming full fee award based on conduct “that
was ‘pervasive’ enough to infect the entire litigation”
(internal citation omitted)); see also In re Rembrandt
Techs. LP Patent Litig., No. 17-1784, 2018 WL 3862644
(Fed. Cir. Aug. 15, 2018) at *18–19 (rejecting a full fee
award because the district court made no finding that the
exceptional misconduct “so severely affected every stage of
the litigation that a full award of attorney fees was proper”
(quoting and distinguishing O2 Micro, 726 F.3d at
1369)). As discussed above, none of these findings were
clearly erroneous.