The Federal Circuit will soon decide the case of Medtronic Navigation, Inc. v. BrainLab. That case concerns the issue of whether it was proper to sanction Medtronic and its attorneys $4.4M for their opponent’s attorney fees, due to conduct during a jury trial.
Judge Matsch, who presided over the Medtronic Navigation trial, recently awarded attorneys fees to another party in another patent case in his court. In CCC Group, Inc. v. Martin Engineering, Inc., 05-cv-00086-RPM-MJW (D. Colo. January 19, 2010), Judge Matsch awarded attorneys fees to the defendant and found the patents at issue unenforceable due to inequitable conduct.
It will be interesting to see if this decision is appealed. I will have to study the decision further; but, one statement in the opinion seems to indicate that it was purportedly deceitful and misleading to include as Fig. 1 in a patent a drawing that was an oversimplification of the prior art.
You can read the district court’s opinion here: [Read].