Finjan Faces $8.7M Fee Bid For 'BS' Juniper Patent War
By Andrew Karpan
Law360 (December 2, 2020, 11:02 PM EST) -- Finjan and its lawyers at Kramer Levin could face blowback for their litigation style to the tune of $8.65 million in attorney fees if Judge William Alsup, who said the case evoked "all the BS that goes on" in patent lawsuits, ultimately accepts Juniper Network's claims that the three-year patent war was based on an exceptionally weak case.
On Monday, Juniper Networks asked U.S. District Judge Alsup to grant it legal fees totaling $8.65 million for its expenses litigating against the nine patent claims that Finjan Inc. had lodged against Juniper in 2017. In a one-page ruling on Wednesday and without comment, Judge Alsup sent the fee claims to the court of U.S. Magistrate Judge Nathanael Cousins for a first look.
The fee claims come less than two months after the Federal Circuit affirmed Juniper's win before a jury against the only patent claim that had survived to trial in a one-line order.
In Juniper's telling on Monday, Finjan had threatened "a multi-headed hydra of lawsuit[s]" if Juniper didn't agree to license an array of Finjan's alleged inventions. These were patents on technologies for storing and downloading security data and were allegedly owned by the Palo Alto, California-based patent licensing company.
But Juniper didn't think that its technology used those inventions at all. Finjan then said it would hit Juniper with a world of legal expenses in which its "best-case scenario would be to spend millions upon millions of dollars defeating each of Finjan's meritless claims."
Now, Juniper wants those millions from Finjan.
The tone of Monday's filing seemed at times incredulous about Finjan's legal strategy during the trial, which was handled by the New York firm Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel LLP.
"It is difficult to conceive of a weaker case," Juniper said about the suit, as it landed at the company's door. Following a few early summary judgment wins in 2018, Juniper said there was no reason for Finjan not to simply give up.
"A reasonable party would have either cut its losses or accepted that it would need to adjust its expectations about the appropriate damages. Not Finjan," Juniper said in its filing.
The filing comes as Judge Alsup has yet to rule on Juniper's earlier allegations that lawyers on the case at Kramer Levin ought to be sanctioned for lying in Judge Alsup's court and pushing "overreaching" theories, particularly about damages. On Monday, Juniper again urged Judge Alsup to finally rule on those sanctions.
In the midst of that trial, Judge Alsup shook his head and remarked that he was convinced one side in the case must be lying to his face. He said that the case was, in his mind, indicative of "all the BS that goes on" in patent litigation.
Juniper said on Monday that the liars were Finjan and its legal team.
Monday's motion drew particular attention to an effort by Finjan, as the case was about to head to trial, to claim $142 million in damages after Juniper provided evidence in discovery that, at most, Juniper would owe less than $1.8 million if the jury found its products infringed on the remaining patent in the case, U.S. Patent No. 8,677,494.
Judge Alsup had rejected Finjan there, too, Juniper's filing recollected. Reviewing Finjan's new theory of damages, he called the numbers "eyepopping" and ultimately "preposterous."
"A reasonable party would have — once again — cut its losses or accepted that it would need to adjust its expectations regarding damages. But, once again, not Finjan," the filing went on.
Finjan instead pushed the case onward on its remaining patent claim and it went before a jury in late 2018.
The trial has had its odd moments. Interrogating the jurors, Judge Alsup had asked about their belief in aliens and forms of telekinesis. Finjan had rejected two jurors who expressed a dim view so-called patent trolls, a pejorative term for nonpracticing entities that make a business of suing for patent infringement. In another filing, Juniper would note that the company is, elsewhere, suing some 20 other companies for patent infringement.
Nonetheless, the jury had found no infringement. The saga, however, only came to an end this October after a Federal Circuit panel responded with skepticism to Finjan's appeal of an earlier ruling that Finjan didn't properly notify Juniper about its alleged infringement, a finding of Judge Alsup's court.
Juniper tallies the $8.65 million that it is demanding from Finjan from the costs it sustained litigating the particularly "meritless claims" before both a jury and then having to defend that verdict in the Federal Circuit.
These fees do not, however, include what Juniper spent defending the patents before inter partes reviews at the instigation of the suit, the company notes.
"Indeed, courts have approved fee awards far larger than the amount sought by Juniper for patent cases litigated through trial," Juniper said.
Representatives for the parties did not respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.
The patents-in-suit are U.S. Patent Nos. 8,141,154; 6,804,780; and 8,677,494.
Finjan was represented by Paul J. Andre and Yuridia Caire of Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel LLP and Francis Joseph Albert, Juanita R. Brooks, Robert Printon Courtney and Oliver James Richards of Fish & Richardson P.C.
Juniper was represented by Rebecca Carson, Dennis Joseph Courtney, Alexis Paschedag Federico, Alan J. Heinrich, Jonathan Kagan and Ingrid Marie Haslund Petersen of Irell & Manella LLP.
The case is Finjan Inc. v. Juniper Network Inc., case number 3:17-cv-05659, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.
--Additional reporting by Hannah Albarazi, Dani Kass, Dorothy Atkins and Britain Eakin. Editing by Peter Rozovsky.
