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Nature of Suit Code: 830
Nature of Suit: Patent
Cause of Action: 35:271 Patent Infringement

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Case No. 18-CV-03685-LHK 

ORDER DENYING MOTION FOR ATTORNEY’S FEES

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United States District Court

Northern District of California

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

SAN JOSE DIVISION

DROPBOX, INC.,

Plaintiff,

v.

SYNCHRONOSS TECHNOLOGIES, INC.,

Defendant.

Case No. 18-CV-03685-LHK 

ORDER DENYING MOTION FOR 

ATTORNEY’S FEES

Re: Dkt. No. 79

Plaintiff Dropbox, Inc. filed a patent infringement suit against Defendant Synchronoss

Technologies, Inc. Plaintiff alleged that Defendant infringes claims of U.S. Patent No. 6,058,399 

(“the ’399 Patent”) and U.S. Patent No. 6,178,505 (“the ’505 Patent”). The Court granted 

Defendant’s motion to dismiss the ’399 Patent claims and the ’505 Patent claims for failure to 

recite patent-eligible subject matter under 35 U.S.C. § 101. Before the Court is Defendant’s 

motion for attorney’s fees pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 285. Having considered the submissions of the 

parties, the relevant law, and the record in this case, the Court DENIES Defendant’s motion for 

attorney’s fees. 

I. BACKGROUND

Plaintiff, which is a Delaware corporation with its principal place of business in San 

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ORDER DENYING MOTION FOR ATTORNEY’S FEES

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Francisco, California, was founded in June 2007 “as a simple way for people to access their files 

wherever they are and share them easily.” ECF No. 49 ¶¶ 1, 10. 

Defendant is a Delaware corporation with its principal place of business in Bridgewater, 

New Jersey, and conducts business from a permanent physical location in San Jose, California. Id.

at ¶¶ 2, 6. Defendant sells its “Personal Cloud” product “as a white-label data backup and transfer 

solution to network operators or service providers, such as Verizon.” Id. at ¶ 13. 

On June 20, 2018, Plaintiff filed the instant patent infringement suit asserting the ’399 

Patent, the ’505 Patent, and U.S. Patent No. 7,567,541. ECF No. 1. On August 13, 2018, 

Defendant filed a motion to dismiss. ECF No. 24. On August 27, 2018, Plaintiff filed an 

opposition. ECF No. 27. On September 4, 2018, Defendant filed a reply. ECF No. 31. 

On October 18, Plaintiff filed a motion to amend the complaint. ECF No. 46. In its 

motion to amend the complaint, Plaintiff sought to “remove its assertion of U.S. Patent No. 

7,567,541 . . . from this lawsuit” because Plaintiff’s wholly-owned subsidiary, Orcinus Holdings 

LLC, was going to assert the ’541 Patent in another case. Id. at 1. Plaintiff also sought to remove 

its request for injunctive relief. Id. The Court granted Plaintiff’s motion to amend the complaint. 

ECF No. 47. Thereafter, on October 22, 2018, Plaintiff filed an amended complaint which only 

asserted the ’399 Patent and the ’505 Patent. AC at ¶¶ 7-9. Plaintiff alleged that “Synchronoss’s 

Cloud products, including without limitation its Personal Cloud product, infringes the Patents-inSuit . . . .” Id. at ¶ 15. On November 30, 2018, the Court denied as moot Defendant’s motion to 

dismiss, ECF No. 24, in light of the amended complaint. 

On December 3, 2018, Defendant refiled its motion to dismiss, incorporating the briefing 

from its previous motion to dismiss. ECF No. 57. On December 5, 2018, Plaintiff filed an 

opposition, incorporating the briefing from Plaintiff’s previous opposition. ECF No. 60. On 

December 11, 2018, Defendant filed a reply, incorporating the briefing from its previous reply. 

ECF No. 61. 

On March 13, 2019, the Court granted Defendant’s motion to dismiss. ECF No. 76. The 

Court then entered judgment in favor of Defendant. ECF No. 77. 

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Case No. 18-CV-03685-LHK 

ORDER DENYING MOTION FOR ATTORNEY’S FEES

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On March 27, 2019, Defendant filed the instant motion for attorney’s fees. ECF No. 79 

(“Mot.”). On April 10, 2019, Plaintiff filed its opposition, ECF No. 82 (“Opp.”), and on April 17, 

2019, Defendant filed its reply. ECF No. 85 (“Reply”). 

II. LEGAL STANDARD

Pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 285, “[t]he court in exceptional cases may award reasonable 

attorney fees to the prevailing party” in patent litigation. The United States Supreme Court 

established the governing standard for determining whether an award of attorney’s fees is 

appropriate in Octane Fitness, LLC v. ICON Health & Fitness, Inc., 572 U.S. 545 (2014). In 

Octane, the United States Supreme Court held that an exceptional case under § 284 is “simply one 

that stands out from others with respect to the substantive strength of a party’s litigating position 

(considering both the governing law and the facts of the case) or the unreasonable manner in 

which the case was litigated.” Id. at 554. District courts “may determine whether a case is 

‘exceptional’ in the case-by-case exercise of their discretion, considering the totality of the 

circumstances.” Id. “[A] case presenting either subjective bad faith or exceptionally meritless 

claims may sufficiently set itself apart from mine-run cases to warrant a fee award.” Id. at 555. 

Ultimately, the decision of whether to award attorney’s fees is left to the Court’s discretion and is 

reviewed on appeal only for abuse of discretion. Highmark Inc. v. Allcare Health Mgmt. Sys., 

Inc., 572 U.S. 559, 563 (2014).

III. DISCUSSION

For purposes of the instant motion, it is undisputed that Defendant was the prevailing party 

because the Court granted Defendant’s motion to dismiss. Defendant argues that the instant case 

is an exceptional one meriting an award of attorney’s fees because of the substantive weakness of 

Plaintiff’s litigating position and because Plaintiff pursued this litigation in an unreasonable 

manner. The Court finds neither argument persuasive. 

In the instant case, the Court’s order granting Defendant’s motion to dismiss required 

significant analysis of Plaintiff’s patents and recent United States Supreme Court and Federal 

Circuit case law in a complex and rapidly developing area of the law. See Dropbox, Inc. v. 

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Synchronoss Techs., Inc., 371 F. Supp. 3d 668 (N.D. Cal. 2019). Specifically, the Court granted 

the motion to dismiss because Plaintiff’s patents failed to claim patent-eligible subject matter 

under 35 U.S.C. § 101. Id. at 673. The United States Supreme Court’s ruling in Alice Corp. Pty. 

Ltd. v. CLS Bank Int’l, 573 U.S. 208 (2014), significantly changed the law on patentable subject 

matter under Section 101, and the law in this area has continued to develop since Alice. 

This Court’s order dismissing Plaintiff’s complaint explained that “[n]either the United 

States Supreme Court nor the Federal Circuit has set forth a bright-line test separating abstract 

ideas from concepts that are sufficiently concrete so as to require no further inquiry” under Alice. 

Dropbox, 371 F. Supp. 3d at 680. Furthermore, although Federal Circuit precedent has clarified 

that information itself is intangible, “the determination of whether other types of computerimplemented claims are abstract has proven more ‘elusive.’” Id. at 681. Thus, “courts 

considering computer-implemented inventions have taken varied approaches to determining 

whether particular claims are directed to an abstract idea.” Id. The Court also relied in part on 

case law that developed even after Defendant filed its motion to dismiss. See id. at 693 (citing 

Univ. of Florida Research Found., Inc. v. Gen. Elec. Co., 916 F.3d 1363, 1368 (Fed. Cir. 2019)). 

In the instant case, this Court’s rejection of Plaintiff’s arguments is insufficient to merit 

finding the instant case exceptional. “[A]s the Supreme Court made clear in Octane, fee awards 

are not to be used ‘as a penalty for failure to win a patent infringement suit.’” Gaymar Indus., Inc. 

v. Cincinnati Sub-Zero Prods., Inc., 790 F.3d 1369, 1373 (Fed. Cir. 2015) (quoting Octane, 572 

U.S. at 548). Because this is such a complex and rapidly developing area of the law, Plaintiff’s 

position was not exceptionally meritless nor were Plaintiff’s claims brought in subjective bad 

faith. See Papst Licensing Gmbh & Co. v. Xilinx Inc., 2016 WL 4398376, at *3 (N.D. Cal. Aug. 

18, 2016) (denying motion for attorney’s fees in part because judgment on the pleadings under 

Section 101 was granted “in a complex and developing area of law”); see also Gametek LLC v. 

Zynga, Inc., 2014 WL 4351414, at *3 (N.D. Cal. Sept. 2, 2014) (declining to find case exceptional 

because plaintiff’s litigating position, although weak, “did not, however, descend to the level of 

frivolous argument or objective unreasonableness”). 

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Unlike in Inventor Holdings, the instant case is not one where the plaintiff’s claims were 

“plainly invalid in view of Alice.” Inventor Holdings, LLC v. Bed Bath & Beyond, Inc., 876 F.3d 

1372, 1377–78 (Fed. Cir. 2017). Further, even in a case in which a district court views patent 

claims as so exceptionally meritless to justify an award of fees, the Federal Circuit could reverse a 

district court’s § 101 dismissal. See, e.g., Cellspin Soft, Inc. v. Fitbit, Inc., 927 F.3d 1306, 1319 

(Fed. Cir. 2019) (reversing district court’s grant of § 101 motions to dismiss and award of 

attorney’s fees). Thus, the Court rejects Defendant’s first argument for an award of attorney’s 

fees. 

Second, as to the manner in which Plaintiff pursued this litigation, Defendant argues that 

Plaintiff acquired patents and filed the instant lawsuit “for the sole purpose of retaliation” in 

response to a patent infringement suit that Defendant filed against Plaintiff. Defendant also 

complains that Plaintiff amended its complaint to withdraw the ’541 Patent because Dropbox’s 

subsidiary and not Dropbox owned the ’541 Patent, and that Plaintiff declined to stay discovery. 

However, “post-Octane decisions awarding fees have generally cited egregious behavior” as the 

litigation conduct necessary to support a fees award. Vasuedevan Software, Inc. v. Microstrategy, 

Inc., 2015 WL 4940635, at *5 (N.D. Cal. Aug. 19, 2015). Even “overly aggressive litigation 

tactics” may not justify a fees award. Id. at *6; see also Gametek, 2014 WL 4351414, at *5 

(rejecting motion for attorney’s fees where allegations suggested only “an aggressive litigation 

strategy” by the losing party). 

In this case, there is no subjective bad faith evident in Plaintiff asserting acquired patents 

against Defendant after Defendant filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Plaintiff. In fact, 

Defendant asserted acquired patents against Plaintiff in the other infringement lawsuit between the 

parties. ECF No. 82-3. Moreover, Plaintiff’s desire not to stay discovery given Plaintiff’s belief 

that the patents-in-suit were patentable is entirely consistent with “good faith zealous advocacy.” 

France Telecom S.A. v. Marvell Semiconductor Inc., 2015 WL 4396201, at *3–4 (N.D. Cal. July 

17, 2015) (holding that “good faith zealous advocacy [is] not exceptional”). Even if Plaintiff 

realized later that Plaintiff’s subsidiary Orcinus rather than Plaintiff owned the ’541 Patent, 

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Plaintiff’s conduct did not prejudice Defendant. Defendant relied on the same briefing in both the 

instant case and the case that Orcinus filed on the ’541 Patent. See Orcinus Holdings, LLC v. 

Synchronoss Techs., Inc., 379 F. Supp. 3d 857, 865 (N.D. Cal. 2019). Thus, the parties did not 

have to fully relitigate a second motion to dismiss in the Orcinus case. 

Further, the facts of those cases in which courts have awarded fees based on litigation 

conduct diverge sharply from this case. For example, in Cambrian Science Corp. v. Cox 

Communications, Inc., 79 F. Supp. 3d 1111 (C.D. Cal. 2015), the district court focused on the 

plaintiff’s behavior during discovery, in which the plaintiff imposed “especially burdensome” and 

“unnecessary” discovery requests, noticed a deposition for a holiday weekend, and overall 

engaged in “exceptionally improper” conduct designed to “harass” the defendants into a 

settlement. Id. at 1118–20. Similarly, in Icon Health & Fitness, Inc. v. Octane Fitness, LLC, 112 

F. Supp. 3d 888 (D. Minn. 2015), the district court found that four cumulative practices, including 

joining an additional party to increase the defendant’s litigation costs, constituted litigation 

conduct that was “exceptionally unreasonable.” Id. at 899; see also Segan LLC v. Zynga Inc., 131 

F. Supp. 3d 956, 963 (N.D. Cal. 2015) (noting that the plaintiff’s litigation conduct would justify 

an award of fees where plaintiff’s attorney “time and time again” instructed plaintiff’s expert not 

to answer questions during a deposition). 

None of those cases involve a responsive patent infringement lawsuit or a plaintiff’s mere 

desire not to stay discovery. Plaintiff’s conduct in the instant case was not so egregious as to merit 

an award of fees. Moreover, Defendant may be responsible for incurring some unnecessary 

attorney’s fees. Defendant refused to consolidate the briefing on Defendant’s motions for 

attorney’s fees in the instant case and in the Orcinus case, even though the briefing on both 

motions for attorney’s fees and the Court’s orders on the motions are largely duplicative. See ECF 

No. 82, Ex. 6. This wastes the resources of the parties and the Court. Plaintiff also alleges that 

Defendant served more than twice as many discovery requests as Plaintiff. Opp. at 17–18. 

Considering the totality of the circumstances, see Octane, 572 U.S. at 554, the Court 

concludes that the instant case is not exceptional under 35 U.S.C. § 285. Accordingly, the Court 

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declines to exercise its discretion to award attorney’s fees to Defendant.

IV. CONCLUSION

For the foregoing reasons, the Court DENIES Defendant’s motion for attorney’s fees. 

IT IS SO ORDERED.

Dated: August 13, 2019

______________________________________

LUCY H. KOH

United States District Judge

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