A recent Law 360 story by Tiffany Hu, “High Court Asked to Review $5M Atty Fees in Fracking IP Suit,” reports that the U.S. Supreme Court has been asked to look into whether the Federal Circuit created "uncertainty and confusion" when it affirmed that a patent dispute over fracking technology was exceptional and warranted granting $5 million in attorney fees.  In a Jan. 12 certiorari petition, Heat On-The-Fly LLC said that the Federal Circuit erred in affirming a North Dakota federal judge's decision that its lawsuit against Energy Heating LLC and other companies was the kind of "exceptional" case that merited attorney fees.

Heat On-The-Fly had argued that the district court failed to take into account the "manner" in which the company litigated the case — including that it did not engage in litigation misconduct — but the Federal Circuit said in October that the lower court "properly considered the totality of the circumstances."  In doing so, Heat On-The-Fly said that the appeals court "ignore[d] the distinction between 'the substantive strength of a party's litigating position' and 'the unreasonable manner in which the case was litigated," citing the high court's 2014 Octane Fitness ruling.

The "decision in this case creates uncertainty and confusion regarding the factors that district courts must address and consider in order to properly exercise their discretion and consider the 'totality of the circumstances' when determining exceptionality," the petition states.

After a bench trial in 2016, U.S. District Judge Ralph R. Erickson found that Heat On-The-Fly's patent was unenforceable because the company and inventor Ransom Mark Hefley knowingly did not tell the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office when they filed a patent application for the concept in September 2009 that the invention had been in use as early as October 2006.  The district judge later rejected Energy Heating's motion for attorney fees, but the Federal Circuit in 2018 said the judge erred in refusing the request because he did not explain his decision, though it affirmed that the patent was unenforceable due to inequitable conduct.