P.C. v. United States Patent & Trademark Office

Background

Plaintiffs LegalForce RAPC Worldwide P.C. and Raj Abhyanker submitted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) on November 29, 2024. The request sought eight categories of records concerning the relationship between the PTO's Office of Enrollment and Discipline and the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). The PTO took a permitted ten-working-day extension but did not complete its response within that period. Throughout 2025, according to plaintiffs, the PTO provided shifting production estimates and issued partial interim responses with redactions citing various FOIA exemptions.

On September 24, 2025 — before plaintiffs filed suit — the PTO referred the remaining responsive records to HUD, explaining that HUD possessed those records. Plaintiff Abhyanker appealed the referral, and the PTO upheld it. Plaintiffs filed suit on October 20, 2025. In December 2025, the PTO produced 12 additional pages of documents it had collected but not yet processed. The court granted the PTO's partial motion to dismiss on February 12, 2026. The PTO and HUD completed production on March 27, 2026, and confirmed completion on April 27, 2026.

Plaintiff Abhyanker then moved for $12,000 in attorney fees based on a lodestar calculation of 12 hours at $1,000 per hour, arguing plaintiffs had substantially prevailed in the FOIA action.

Legal Framework

FOIA's fee-shifting provision, 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(4)(E), allows a court to award reasonable attorney fees to a complainant who has "substantially prevailed." One pathway to that status is through "a voluntary or unilateral change in position by the agency, if the complainant's claim is not insubstantial." Id. § 552(a)(4)(E)(ii)(II).

Fee eligibility and fee entitlement are distinct inquiries. Eligibility — i.e., substantially prevailing — requires a causal nexus between the filing of the lawsuit and the government's subsequent disclosure or change in position. The plaintiff must present convincing evidence that filing the action had a substantial causative effect on the delivery of information. Courts assess three factual criteria: (1) when the documents were released, (2) what actually triggered the release, and (3) whether the plaintiff was entitled to the documents at an earlier time. Even if eligibility is established, entitlement remains within the court's discretion and turns on four additional factors: public benefit from disclosure, commercial benefit to the plaintiff, the nature of the plaintiff's interest in the records, and whether the government's withholding had a reasonable legal basis.

Analysis and Ruling

Judge Pitts denied the motion on eligibility grounds, holding that plaintiffs failed to establish a causal nexus between their lawsuit and the subsequent disclosures.

The court found that the government's decision to produce records had never been in genuine doubt. The PTO had already decided to refer plaintiffs' FOIA request to HUD on September 24, 2025 — weeks before the October 20, 2025 filing. The United States argued, and the court agreed, that the PTO had already committed to producing the requested records before plaintiffs sued. As for the 12 pages produced in December 2025, the government explained these documents had been collected but inadvertently not processed — not withheld as a result of a contested position that the lawsuit changed. And as for the documents HUD produced in March 2026, the court noted that HUD was not a party to the lawsuit, so the suit could not plausibly have compelled HUD's production.

Plaintiffs argued that even if the PTO referred the request to HUD before the suit, their lawsuit prompted the PTO to actually transmit the referral letter — since HUD did not receive it until January 20, 2026. They also argued that the December 2025 production surfaced only because litigation prompted further internal review. The court found these arguments unsupported: plaintiffs offered no evidentiary basis beyond the temporal sequence of events. The court held that the mere fact that disclosures followed the filing of suit does not constitute affirmative evidence of causation.

The court declined to reach the threshold question of whether a pro se attorney — such as Abhyanker, who appeared to represent himself and the firm — may recover fees under FOIA at all, noting only that several out-of-circuit authorities suggest an organization represented by in-house counsel may recover fees.

Disposition

Plaintiffs' motion for fees and costs was denied.