Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-cand-5_01-cv-20709/USCOURTS-cand-5_01-cv-20709-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 830
Nature of Suit: Patent
Cause of Action: 28:2201 Declaratory Judgement

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United States District Court

For the Northern District of California

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*E-FILED 5/9/05*

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

SAN JOSE DIVISION

DOLBY LABORATORIES, INC., ET AL.,

Plaintiffs,

 v.

 LUCENT TECHNOLOGIES, INC., ET AL.,

Defendants.

 /

NO. 5:01-cv-20709 JF (RS)

ORDER GRANTING IN PART

AND DENYING IN PART

DOLBY'S REQUEST FOR

ATTORNEYS' FEES

I. INTRODUCTION

Plaintiffs Dolby Laboratories, Inc. and Dolby Laboratories Licensing Corporation (collectively,

"Dolby") previously filed a motion for evidentiary sanctions against defendants Lucent Technologies, Inc.

and Lucent Technologies Guardian I, LLC (collectively, "Lucent"), which was granted in part and denied in

part in an order issued on January 28, 2005. In that order, Dolby was awarded the fees incurred in filing its

motion and was instructed to submit such fees to the Court for a determination as to the amount of money

Lucent would be ordered to pay to Dolby. Accordingly, on February 10, 2005, Dolby submitted its fee

request to the Court. On March 4, 2005, Lucent filed its objections to the fee request. Based on all papers

filed to date, the Court grants in part and denies in part Dolby's request for attorneys' fees, for the reasons

set forth below.

Case 5:01-cv-20709-JF Document 683 Filed 05/09/05 Page 1 of 6
United States District Court

For the Northern District of California

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II. BACKGROUND

The Court has issued many orders in this action and will not, therefore, repeat here the factual

background of this action. As noted above, Dolby's present request is the result of a prior determination by

the Court that Dolby was entitled to reimbursement of its reasonable fees incurred in filing a motion for

evidentiary sanctions against Lucent. Dolby has now submitted its request for reimbursement, which totals

well over $100,000.00. Lucent objects to this amount based on its contention that: (1) not all of the billed

activities are related solely to the motion for sanctions; (2) some of the billed activities would have been

incurred by Dolby regardless of the motion for sanctions; (3) some of the billed activities reflect duplicative

work; (4) several of the billed activities are excessive since they reflect work which was performed by a

partner that could have been accomplished by an associate; and, (5) four of the entries reflect work that

combines activities associated with the motion for sanctions with activities unrelated to the motion for

sanctions. Based on its objections, Lucent contends that the Court should award fees to Dolby in an

amount no greater than $33,995.75. 

III. STANDARDS

The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Rule 37(b)(2), authorizes the imposition of sanctions for a

party's failure to comply with a discovery order. See Fed.R.Civ.Pro. 37(b)(2)(D). The decision to award

sanctions, including attorneys' fees and costs, is discretionary. See National Hockey League v.

Metropolitan Hockey Club, Inc., 427 U.S. 639, 642, 96 S.Ct. 2778, 2780 (1976); Telluride Management

Solutions, Inc. v. Telluride Investment Group, 55 F. 3d 463, 465 (9th Cir. 1995).

IV. DISCUSSION

A. Fees Incurred Which Are Unrelated to Sanctions Motion

The first category of fees to which Lucent objects are those entries which it contends are not fairly

attributable to Dolby's sanctions motion. Lucent states that Dolby seeks reimbursement for the time spent

on its original motion for sanctions, which was denied on December 15, 2004, rather than on its renewed

motion for sanctions, filed on December 21, 2004. Accordingly, since the fees incurred with respect to

Dolby's initial motion for sanctions were not included in the Court's order issued on January 28, 2005,

Lucent requests that such fees be excluded from Dolby's award.

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For the Northern District of California

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1

 Lucent requests that the Court deduct $10,590.00 in fees in Category Two. However, the deductions requested

by Lucent actually total $11,864.00. Therefore, as noted, this total will be deducted from Dolby's fee request.

3

A review of the time sheets submitted by Dolby indicates that there are many entries which appear

to relate to the initial motion for sanctions filed by Dolby and are not directed solely towards the subsequent

motion filed on December 21, 2004. Since the Court awarded Dolby the fees incurred solely with respect

to its second motion for sanctions, Lucent's objections to Dolby's request for fees which reflect work

directed towards the initial motion are sustained. Therefore, the fees denoted in Category One of Lucent's

objections, totaling $14,442.25, will not be included in the award to Dolby.

B. Fees Dolby Would Incur Regardless of Sanctions Motion

Lucent also objects to Dolby's request for fees based on its contention that many of the fees would

have been incurred by Dolby regardless of the filing of its motion for sanctions since they involve generic

tasks, such as reviewing and organizing documents. Again, a review of the time sheets submitted by Dolby

appears to support Lucent's contention. In reviewing the work denoted in Lucent's Category Two, totaling

$11,864, the entries appear to include work which Dolby would have completed in this action regardless of

the motion for sanctions. As a result, the fees in this category will not be included in the award to Dolby.1 

C. Duplicative Fees

Lucent contends that several entries submitted by Dolby reflect duplicative work performed. 

However, with respect to the entries for F. Esponda and E. Quezada, dated December 9, 10, and 13,

2004, the Court has already disallowed those expenses in conjunction with Lucent's objections set forth in

Category Two. Therefore, only four entries remain in dispute in this category and it does not appear that

such entries are unnecessarily duplicative. Three of the entries reflect attorney Leibnitz's preparation for

oral argument regarding the motion for sanctions and were all completed on separate days. Those entries

do not represent an unreasonable amount of time spent on preparing for oral argument based on the gravity

and scope of the requested relief. The final entry concerns legal research conducted by S. Raghunathan

which is directly related to the issues raised by the Court at the hearing on the motion for sanctions. As a

result, those four entries will be allowed in the award to Dolby and Lucent's objections thereto are

overruled. 

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United States District Court

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D. Fees Unreasonably Incurred for Work Performed by Partners

Lucent also complains that Dolby's fee request is unreasonable because partners were utilized to

accomplish "basic drafting and legal research work that could reasonably have been done by associates at

lower rates." See Lucent's Objections at p. 2. Although this objection is well-taken, it is inappropriate to

deduct, as Lucent suggests, all of the fees identified in Category Four since there is no argument that

legitimate, related work was performed by the partners. Rather, as Lucent points out, the work could have

been completed by associates at a lower rate. As a result, rather than deduct the entire amount of

$57,135.50 from Dolby's award, the Court will apply the average associate rate of $200.00 per hour to

the work that was performed in this category, resulting in an award of $25,400.00 to Dolby. Therefore, the

sum of $31,735.50 will be deducted from the award to Dolby in Category Four. 

E. Fees Which Contain Work Unrelated to Motion for Sanctions

Lucent contends that four specific entries improperly combine work related to the sanctions motion

with work that is unrelated to the sanctions motion. However, all but one of the entries have already been

deducted from the award based on the objections noted above. The only remaining entry to which Lucent

objects reflects work performed by attorney Cooper on January 17, 2005. That entry, as Lucent correctly

notes, combines work performed on the motion for sanctions with work that was performed on other,

unrelated tasks. Specifically, attorney Cooper "reviewed Lucent's motion for miscellaneous relief to be

permitted to file an additional brief in opposition to Dolby motion to compel Lucent to identify in the source

code the limitations of asserted claims," which is not related directly to the motion for sanctions. See Jeffrey

Fisher Declaration, Exh. B at p 8. Since the Court is unable to ascertain the amount of time that was spent

on the task related to the motion for sanctions, and because Dolby bears the burden of demonstrating the

hours worked in support of its fee request, Fischer v. SJB - P.D., Inc., 214 F.3d 1115, 1121 (9th Cir.

2000), the entire entry, totaling $3480, will be disallowed. As a result, this amount will be deducted from

Dolby's fee request with respect to the objections denoted in Lucent's Category Five.

V. CONCLUSION

For the reasons stated, the Court grants in part and denies in part Dolby's request for an award of

attorneys' fees incurred in filing its previous motion for evidentiary sanctions against Lucent and orders

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Lucent to pay to Dolby the sum of $69,651.25 within twenty (20) days of the date of this order. 

IT IS SO ORDERED.

Dated: May 9, 2005 /s/ Richard Seeborg 

RICHARD SEEBORG

United States Magistrate Judge

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United States District Court

For the Northern District of California

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THIS IS TO CERTIFY THAT NOTICE OF THIS ORDER HAS BEEN DELIVERED TO:

Seth Beal seth_beal@la.kirkland.com

John L. Cooper jcooper@fbm.com, brestivo@fbm.com;calendar@fbm.com 

Jeffrey M. Fisher jfisher@fbm.com, renterig@fbm.com;calendar@fbm.com 

Alan S. Kellman akellman@kirkland.com, jlee@kirkland.com;djsullivan@kirkland.com 

Andrew Leibnitz aleibnitz@fbm.com 

David Shukan dshukan@kirkland.com, akellman@kirkland.com 

Dated: May 9, 2005 Chambers of Judge Richard Seeborg

By: /s/ BAK 

Case 5:01-cv-20709-JF Document 683 Filed 05/09/05 Page 6 of 6