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Thursday, March 28, 2024 | Back issues
Courthouse News Service Courthouse News Service

Drone App Maker Taking Home $9M in Patent Case

PITTSBURGH (CN) - Citing deliberate delays in litigation over a knockoff drone-piloting app, a federal judge tacked $1.6 million in fees to a $7.8 million judgment.

The figure is a hair less than the $1.7 million in attorneys' fees and expenses that Drone Technologies had requested after a jury found that Parrot Inc. had appropriated its remote-control drone technology.

With Drone Technologies seeking $175,000 for Parrot's noncompliance with court orders, U.S. District Judge Arthur Schwab agreed back in June that fees connected to Parrot's "failure to comply with discovery obligations" were reasonable.

Schwab directed a special master to review the request, and that individual recommended that Schwab grant all but $16,000, or 42 hours of pay, from the total amount Drone Technologies had requested.

U.S. District Judge Arthur Schwab accepted the recommendation and closed the case last week Tuesday.

Schwab agreed that the hourly rates requested matched reasonable market rates for local Pittsburgh patent litigators, and that the number of hours requested also seemed reasonable, "especially in light of the Court's intimate knowledge of the unprecedented nature of this litigation over a period of 18 months, in which the entire proceeding was impeded and unduly complicated by Defendant's exceptional conduct."

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