A recent Law 360 story by Michelle Casady, “5th Circ. Says $1M Atty Fee Request Needs Reconsideration” reports that the Fifth Circuit has determined that drilling data company Petrolink Services Inc. will get another chance to prove it's entitled to about $1 million in attorney fees for a lawsuit in which it beat back copyright infringement claims but was found by a jury to have unjustly enriched itself.  In an opinion, a three-judge panel agreed with Petrolink that a trial court had wrongly denied its request for fees without consideration in the lawsuit brought by competitor Digital Drilling Data Systems LLC, or Digidrill.  Digidrill accused Petrolink of hacking into its software at various oil rig sites in order to "scrape" valuable drilling data in real time.

Both companies appealed the trial court's judgment in early 2019.  After granting summary judgment dismissal on Digidrill's claims that Petrolink violated the Copyright Act and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the trial court denied Petrolink's request for about $1 million in attorney fees.  On appeal, Petrolink argued it was entitled to the award as the prevailing party on those claims.

Quoting the district court, the Fifth Circuit wrote that the lower court declined to award costs or fees to either side, because "both prevailed on different issues."  "It is difficult to make sense of this language in light of the fact that Petrolink only sought fees related to Digidrill's copyright and DMCA claims, on which Petrolink clearly and solely prevailed," the panel wrote.  "It matters not whether Digidrill ultimately prevailed on its state law unjust enrichment claim."  The Fifth Circuit sent the case back to the trial court for it to "properly analyze the motion" for attorney fees.