A recent Law 360 story by Hailey Konnath, “Apple Wants $5M in Fees After Beating Vibration Tech IP Suit”, reports that Apple Inc. has asked a California federal judge to award it roughly $5 million in attorney fees and expert costs following its recent defeat of a patent infringement suit brought by headphone maker Taction Technology Inc., arguing that Taction's "unreasonable" litigation tactics caused Apple to incur significant costs.  Apple said in a motion filed that Taction dragged out the litigation when it should've admitted that it couldn't maintain its patent infringement claims following a September 2022 claim construction order.  Apple asked the court to award it $4.5 million in fees and $444,000 in expert expenses.

"Rather than concede non-infringement and then seek immediate appeal, which would have avoided another year of costly litigation in this court, Taction violated this district's patent local rules to pursue new theories of infringement in the expert phase and attempted to defend those theories with new arguments and evidence at the summary judgment hearing," Apple said.  On top of that, Taction made a late attempt to add marketing allegations to its complaint that it hadn't properly disclosed during discovery, according to the motion.  "Each of these objectively unreasonable tactics caused Apple and the cort to expend significant resources and caused Apple to incur significant costs," it said.

Earlier this month, U.S. District Judge Todd Robinson ruled in Apple's favor after discarding "improper" testimony from Taction's expert witness, Iowa State University mechanical engineering professor James Oliver. Oliver's opinions "constitute a ... new theory of infringement" that Taction hadn't previously presented, Judge Robinson held. And without that testimony, Taction's case fails, the judge said.  In any event, Apple's iPhone and Apple Watch operate differently from the invention covered by Taction's patents, Judge Robinson added.

Apple said that Taction's "untenable and shifting infringement positions" make the case "exceptional."  Apple's accused technologies are "fundamentally different" from Taction's patents, and this was evident from Taction's own evidence and infringement contentions, according to the motion.  "Taction's entire case was based on its objectively meritless infringement positions, as evidenced by the court's conclusion that no reasonable jury could find infringement of either asserted patent," Apple said.