Bloomberg Denied Legal Fees in Infringement Case Over Use of Stock Symbols
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A Delaware federal judge has denied Bloomberg's bid to recover attorney fees for having to defend an infringement lawsuit over a system that provides mobile access to its real-time financial data, ruling the case did not qualify as "exceptional" under U.S. patent law.
U.S. Chief Judge Leonard P. Stark of the District of Delaware said Wednesday that there was no evidence Quest Licensing Corp. had acted in bad faith by pursuing claims that targeted Bloomberg Anywhere, which allows remote access to the company’s flagship product for monitoring financial information from any device.
A district court judge granted Bloomberg's motion for summary judgement in early 2017, ruling that Quest had essentially tried to re-litigate an unfavorable claim construction that went in Bloomberg's favor.
Bloomberg, the New York-based financial software, data and media firm, moved for attorney fees, but the request was tabled until the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit could weigh in on Quest's appeal. The appeals court affirmed the lower court's decision in last June, without issuing an opinion.
The case in Delaware turned on Judge Gregory M. Sleet's determination that Quest's patent for sending and receiving “changing information” could only refer to price information that changed. Bloomberg Anywhere, however, incorporated "unique identifiers," such as stock ticker symbols, that fell outside the scope of the patent claims, Sleet said.
"Quest contends that stock symbols are ‘changing information,'” Sleet, who is now retired, wrote in an eight-page memorandum opinion. “This assertion flies directly in the face of the court’s claim construction. The court has construed the term ‘changing information’ to mean ‘only price data that has changed.’"
Bloomberg argued that Quest's case became "exceptionally meritless" in light of Sleet's claim construction ruling and that the company continued to litigate the point, despite knowing that it could not prevail.
On Wednesday, Stark acknowledged that "there are certainly grounds here on which a reasonable judge" might deem the case exceptional. But he said that Quest's position, though weak, did not rise to the level of litigation misconduct.
In a 12-page ruling, Stark wrote that it was not unreasonable for Quest to advocate a broader definition of its patent claim. He also rejected Bloomberg's assertions that Quest was motivated by financial hardships, which threatened its ability to operate as a going concern.
"Plaintiff was advocating a non-frivolous position. Having reached this conclusion, the court further finds no litigation misconduct by plaintiff," he said.
"This Court's review of the record persuades it that Plaintiff was advocating reasonable infringement positions as it opposed Defendants' motion for summary judgment of noninfringement. The case does not 'stand out' from other patent cases."
Attorneys from both sides were not immediately available to comment.
Bloomberg was represented by Michael Levin of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati in Palo Alto, California, and Edward G. Poplawski and Olivia M. Kim from the firm's Los Angeles office. Rodger D. Smith II and Michael J. Flynn of Morris, Nichols, Arsht & Tunnell acted as local counsel.
Quest was represented by Alfred. R. Fabricant, Lawrence C. Drucker and Vincent J. Rubino of Brown Rudnick in New York and Stephen B. Brauerman and Sara E. Bussiere of Bayard in Wilmington.
The case is captioned Quest Licensing v. Bloomberg.
