Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca13-14-01697/USCOURTS-ca13-14-01697-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Alamo Group, Inc.
Appellee
Bush Hog, Inc.
Appellee
Deere & Company
Appellant
Duroc LLC
Appellee
Great Plains Manufacturing Incorporated
Appellee

Document Text:

Note: This disposition is nonprecedential. 

United States Court of Appeals 

for the Federal Circuit ______________________ 

DEERE & COMPANY,

Plaintiff-Appellant

v.

DUROC LLC, FKA BUSH HOG, LLC, ALAMO 

GROUP, INC., BUSH HOG, INC., GREAT PLAINS 

MANUFACTURING INCORPORATED,

Defendants-Appellees

______________________ 

2014-1697

______________________ 

Appeal from the United States District Court for the 

Southern District of Iowa in No. 3:09-cv-00095-CRW-TJS, 

Senior Judge Charles R. Wolle.

______________________ 

Decided: May 26, 2016

______________________ 

 STEPHEN PIERCE ANTHONY, Covington & Burling LLP, 

Washington, DC, argued for plaintiff-appellant. Also 

represented by RODERICK R. MCKELVIE, JAY I. ALEXANDER,

ROBERT JASON FOWLER. 

 CRAIG C. MARTIN, Jenner & Block LLP, Chicago, IL, 

argued for defendant-appellee Duroc LLC. Also repreCase: 14-1697 Document: 66-2 Page: 1 Filed: 05/26/2016
2 DEERE & COMPANY v. DUROC LLC

sented by DAVID JIMENEZ-EKMAN, SARA TONNIES HORTON,

MICHAEL ANTHONY SCODRO, STEVEN R. TRYBUS. 

SCOTT W. HEJNY, McKool Smith, P.C., Dallas, TX, argued for defendants-appellees Alamo Group, Inc., Bush 

Hog, Inc. Also represented by PHILLIP AURENTZ; JOEL 

LANCE THOLLANDER, Austin, TX.

 SCOTT R. BROWN, Hovey Williams LLP, Overland 

Park, KS, argued for defendant-appellee Great Plains 

Manufacturing Incorporated. Also represented by 

MATTHEW B. WALTERS. 

______________________ 

Before NEWMAN, PLAGER, and REYNA, Circuit Judges.

NEWMAN, Circuit Judge. 

The district court’s judgment on the merits has been 

affirmed, Deere & Company v. Duroc LLC, Fed. Cir. 

No. 14-1697 (“Deere I”) (decided concurrently). Deere also

appeals aspects of the district court’s taxation of costs 

under 28 U.S.C. § 1920. On review, we conclude that the 

district court’s rulings are within the scope of the court’s 

discretion, and affirm. 

BACKGROUND

Deere sued the Defendants (including predecessor and 

successor companies) for infringement of U.S. Patent No.

6,052,980. After claim construction, the district court 

granted summary judgment of non-infringement, and 

ordered the Clerk of Court to enter judgment for both 

Defendants, with costs to be assessed against Deere. The 

Defendants submitted their bills of costs, and the Clerk’s 

assessment was reviewed and affirmed by the district 

court. The court stated that it had “carefully studied the 

parties’ submissions and held a telephonic hearing solely 

to address these costs issues . . . .” Deere & Co. v. Bush 

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DEERE & COMPANY v. DUROC LLC 3

Hog, LLC, 3:09-cv-00095 (S.D. Iowa Jan. 27, 2012), ECF 

No. 185,1 at 2-3 (Order). 

Meanwhile, Deere appealed the summary judgment of 

non-infringement, and the Defendants conditionally crossappealed on the issue of the district court’s dismissal of 

their invalidity counterclaim in the event the noninfringement ruling was overturned. We modified the 

district court’s claim construction, vacated the summary 

judgment of non-infringement, and remanded for trial. 

Deere & Co. v. Bush Hog, LLC, 703 F.3d 1349 (Fed. Cir. 

2012). In light of this decision, the parties agreed to 

vacate the existing costs Order. 

After a thirteen-day trial, the jury found that the 

Deere patent was not infringed, and the district court 

entered judgment in favor of the Defendants and denied 

post-trial motions. These judgments are affirmed in Deere 

I. The Defendants submitted their bills of taxable costs, 

and Deere objected to various requested costs as excessive, beyond the authority of the district court to tax, or 

lacking the required documentation. After receiving 

memoranda from both sides, the Clerk resolved the disputed costs issues. 

The district court reviewed the assessments and upheld most of the costs, denying all but one of Deere’s 

objections. The court approved the taxation as “supported 

by 28 U.S.C. § 1920, legal authorities cited in the Defendants’ briefs, and in view of the length and complexity of 

the fourteen-day long patent trial.” Order at 1–2, Deere

ECF No. 586. This appeal followed.

1 Further references to orders and other papers 

from the district court proceedings will be referenced as 

[Document Title], Deere, ECF No. [#].

 

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DISCUSSION

During oral argument of this appeal, the Defendants 

conceded some of the objections raised by Deere. See 

Joint Letter, No. 14-1697, ECF No. 65 (Oct. 22, 2015). 

The adjusted costs assessed against Deere are 

$291,166.38 for Duroc, $118,985.47 for Alamo, and 

$94,176.64 for Great Plains. Deere raises three categories 

of objections.

In reviewing taxable costs under 28 U.S.C. § 1920, we 

apply the procedural law of the regional circuit, here the 

Eighth Circuit. See Ortho-McNeil Pharm., Inc. v. Mylan 

Labs. Inc., 569 F.3d 1353, 1356 (Fed. Cir. 2009) (procedural matters not unique to the Federal Circuit are 

governed by regional circuit law).

28 U.S.C. § 1920 defines the costs that a district court 

may tax. Crawford Fitting Co. v. J.T. Gibbons, Inc., 482 

U.S. 437, 441–42 (1987). District courts have discretion 

over the assessment and calculation of costs under § 1920. 

See Zotos v. Lindbergh Sch. Dist., 121 F.3d 356, 363 (8th 

Cir. 1997) (reviewing costs for abuse of discretion). “An 

abuse of discretion occurs where the district court rests its 

conclusion on clearly erroneous factual findings or erroneous legal conclusions.” Lankford v. Sherman, 451 F.3d 

496, 503–04 (8th Cir. 2006).

Deere challenges the assessment of costs in three areas: (1) costs related to document copying, (2) costs related 

to e-discovery, and (3) costs related to trial exemplifications. We address each in turn. 

1. Document Copying

Section 1920(4) grants discretion to the district court 

to determine what copying costs were “necessarily obtained for use in the case.” Deere states that the district 

court included costs for copies of documents that were not 

introduced at trial or not related to discovery. Deere also

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DEERE & COMPANY v. DUROC LLC 5

argues that the requested copying costs lacked adequate

documentation.

The Clerk, and the district judge on review, disallowed copying costs that they found to be “primarily for 

the convenience of counsel,” but allowed the major copying costs. See Taxation of Costs as to Duroc LLC at 1, 

Deere, ECF No. 580; Taxation of Costs as to Alamo Group, 

Inc. and Bush Hog, Inc. at 1, Deere, ECF No. 581. The 

district court found that “the Clerk again painstakingly 

reviewed defendants’ separate bills of costs, as well as 

legal authorities all parties cited” in its “taxation of 

defendants’ well-documented costs for copying and printing.” Order at 1–2, Deere, ECF No. 586.

The record demonstrates consideration of the copying 

costs and a reasoned analysis of whether copies were

made for “reasons other than trial preparation.” See 

Slagenweit v. Slagenweit, 63 F.3d 719, 721 (8th Cir. 

1995). We discern no abuse of discretion in the taxation 

of costs of copying documents found to be “necessarily 

obtained for use in the case,” whether or not the documents were introduced into evidence.

2. e-Discovery

The parties had entered into an electronically stored 

information production agreement (“ESI Agreement”) that 

provided that each document would be produced as a 

Tagged Image File Format (“TIFF”) image and include 

various specified metadata. Deere states that the ediscovery costs taxed by the district court are (1) not 

taxable as a matter of law, or (2) were erroneously calculated in that the costs presented by the Defendants include storage and hosting expenses for ESI storage which, 

Deere asserts, are not taxable under § 1920.

The Defendants’ concessions on appeal removed much 

of the storage and hosting costs. Although not every 

objection that Deere raises was conceded, compare Deere 

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6 DEERE & COMPANY v. DUROC LLC

Br. 34 with Letter Documenting Concessions (October 22, 

2015), ECF No. 65, it appears that the issue of ESI storage and hosting fees was generally resolved. Therefore 

we address only the issue of whether e-discovery costs are 

taxable as a matter of law.

The parties agree that there is no controlling Eighth 

Circuit precedent on this issue. Deere Br. 26; Duroc Br. 

26; Great Plains Br. 25; Alamo Br. 20–21. Further complicating the issue, various aspects of the e-discovery 

process were governed by a negotiated ESI Agreement 

that required various e-discovery actions to be undertaken. The ESI Agreement required that all documents be 

produced electronically in a database format, productnumbered, searchable, with OCR and metadata extracted 

and identified, and produced on suitable storage media. 

This Agreement set the base requirements for all documents produced during e-discovery.

The district court held that when the costs of complying with the agreement are within the obligations of the 

Agreement and reasonably incurred in complying with the 

Agreement, they are recoverable. 

Generally, the costs incurred in actually copying and 

producing in the required formats are considered a taxable “cost of creating the produced duplicate,” while the 

costs incurred in preparing documents for copying and 

production in the agreed formats are deemed “ancillary.” 

See CBT Flint Partners, LLC v. Return Path, Inc., 737 

F.3d 1320, 1329–1330 (Fed. Cir. 2013) (illustrating differences between costs related to copying and conversion and 

costs outside that limited scope). The district court held

that the e-discovery costs incurred in procedures required

by the ESI Agreement are within the scope of § 1920. 

Relying on the Agreement, the district court did not 

separate the activities required by the e-discovery Agreement. We conclude that the district acted within its

discretion.

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DEERE & COMPANY v. DUROC LLC 7

3. Trial exemplifications

Deere argues that the district court improperly taxed 

the Defendants’ “trial technology support” and the costs of 

trial exhibit creation and presentation.

Here, the district court held that “[t]he Clerk properly 

taxed costs incurred by defendants for trial technology 

specialists and demonstrative exhibits, necessary for 

thorough presentation of the issues decided by the jury.” 

Order at 2, Deere, ECF No. 586. It is appropriate for the 

exemplifications prepared for and presented at trial to be 

considered to fall within the statutory constraints of 

§ 1920. Given that the taxed costs relate to and derive 

from trial exhibit creation and presentation, and especially given that the district court found the exhibits to be 

“necessary for thorough presentation of the issues decided 

by the jury,” we conclude that the Eighth Circuit would 

reasonably find the district court’s taxation to be within 

its discretion and within the statute’s constraints.

CONCLUSION

The district court’s taxation of the challenged costs

was within the district court’s discretion and in conformity with the statute. The judgment is affirmed.

On this appeal, each party shall bear its costs. 

AFFIRMED

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