Bluebonnet Internet Media Services, LLC v. Pandora Media, LLC
- Vince Chhabria
- 3:21-cv-08294
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 2
In Bluebonnet v. Pandora, Judge Chhabria denied Pandora’s fee request and granted related motions to seal.
Pandora’s request for attorneys’ fees and sanctions was denied. Bluebonnet and its counsel were criticized as having engaged in troubling conduct, but the court did not award fees against them. The identified documents were sealed.
What happened
Bluebonnet Internet Media Services, LLC v. Pandora Media, LLC concerned Pandora’s request for attorneys’ fees and sanctions after the court’s ruling on the pleadings. Pandora argued that Bluebonnet and its counsel had litigated the case in a way that justified an award.
The court said Bluebonnet’s and its counsel’s conduct was troubling and that judgment on the pleadings was not a close question. But it found that the case and the litigation were not weak or unreasonable enough to qualify as exceptional under the patent-fee statute. The court also noted that the patents were issued after the Supreme Court’s Alice decision and that courts disagree about how to apply that decision.
Judge Vince Chhabria denied Pandora’s motion for attorneys’ fees, including requests under the patent-fee statute, a statute concerning unreasonable litigation conduct, and the court’s inherent authority. The court granted the related motions to seal documents containing previously sealed material, Pandora’s technical information, and notes apparently dating from the conception of Bluebonnet’s patent.
The detailed version
- Bluebonnet Internet Media Services, LLC v. Pandora Media, LLC · No. 3:21-cv-08294
- Vince Chhabria
- Nov. 22, 2022
Background
Pandora Media, LLC moved for attorneys’ fees and sanctions. The order states that judgment on the pleadings was not a close question, and it describes the conduct of Bluebonnet Internet Media Services, LLC and its counsel as troubling.
Fee and sanctions ruling
The court denied Pandora’s motion for attorneys’ fees. Under 35 U.S.C. § 285, a court may award fees in an exceptional patent case. Applying the standard from Octane Fitness, LLC v. ICON Health & Fitness, Inc., the court concluded that this case was not so weak, and the litigation was not conducted so unreasonably, as to be exceptional. The court emphasized that the patents were issued after the Supreme Court’s decision in Alice and that courts disagree about how to apply that decision.
For the same reasons, the court ruled that fees were not warranted under 28 U.S.C. § 1927, which concerns unreasonable and vexatious litigation conduct, or under the court’s inherent authority.
Sealing ruling
The court granted the related motions to seal identified as Docket Nos. 161, 162, 172, 173, and 177. The sealed documents included material previously ordered sealed, technical information from Pandora that Bluebonnet had filed, and three pages of brief notes apparently dating from the conception of Bluebonnet’s patent. The court stated that it did not consider the latter two sets of materials in resolving the fee motion.
Disposition
Judge Vince Chhabria denied Pandora’s motion for attorneys’ fees and granted the related motions to seal.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.