United States Court of Appeals 

for the Federal Circuit ______________________ 

SFA SYSTEMS, LLC,

Plaintiff-Appellee

v.

NEWEGG INC.,

Defendant-Appellant

______________________ 

2014-1712

______________________ 

Appeal from the United States District Court for the 

Eastern District of Texas in Nos. 6:09-cv-00340-LED, 

6:11-cv-00399-LED, Chief Judge Leonard Davis.

______________________ 

Decided: July 10, 2015

______________________ 

JOHN J. EDMONDS, Collins, Edmonds, Pogorzelski, 

Schlather & Tower PLLC, Houston, TX, argued for plaintiff-appellee. Also represented by ELIZABETH A. WILEY, 

The Wiley Firm PC, Austin, TX; ANDREW W. SPANGLER, 

Spangler Law PC, Longview, TX.

MARK A. LEMLEY, Durie Tangri LLP, San Francisco, 

CA, argued for defendant-appellant. Also represented by 

KENT E. BALDAUF, JR., DANIEL H. BREAN, The Webb Law 

Firm, Pittsburgh, PA; RICHARD GREGORY FRENKEL, Latham & Watkins LLP, Menlo Park, CA; EDWARD R.
2 SFA SYSTEMS, LLC v. NEWEGG INC. 

REINES, Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP, Redwood Shores, 

CA.

______________________ 

Before O’MALLEY, CLEVENGER, and HUGHES, Circuit 

Judges.

O’MALLEY, Circuit Judge. 

SFA Systems, Inc. (“SFA”) brought this patent infringement action against multiple accused infringers, 

including Newegg, Inc. (“Newegg”), in the United States 

District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. After the 

district court issued its claim construction order, but 

before the parties exchanged expert reports, SFA voluntarily dismissed the suit with prejudice under Federal 

Rule of Civil Procedure 41(a), and covenanted not to sue 

Newegg for infringement of the patents at issue. Newegg 

then moved for attorneys’ fees under 35 U.S.C. § 285 

(2012). Because we find that the district court did not 

abuse its discretion in denying Newegg’s § 285 motion, we 

affirm. 

I. BACKGROUND

A. The Patents 

There are two related patents at issue in this appeal, 

U.S. Patent Nos. 6,067,525 (“the ’525 patent”) and 

7,941,341 (“the ’341 patent”). Both patents relate to a 

computer sales system that includes a plurality of subsystems or components, where each of the components corresponds to a different phase of the sales process. The 

patents disclose “an event manager” that integrates all of 

the different sales process components. The event manager detects the occurrence of “events” and automatically 

implements operations based on those events. For example, the event manager allows data from one component to 

be shared with all of the other components in the sales 
SFA SYSTEMS, LLC v. NEWEGG INC. 3

system so that when data is entered in one component, it 

will also be available in all of the other components. 

B. Procedural History

On July 28, 2009, SFA filed this patent infringement 

suit in the United States District Court for the Eastern 

District of Texas against multiple online retailers, including Newegg, alleging infringement of the ’525 patent. A 

little over two years later, after some parties settled with 

SFA and were dropped from the suit, SFA filed a separate 

suit against the remaining accused infringers, this time 

asserting the ’341 patent, which had issued on May 10, 

2011. On October 21, 2011, after all of the other accused 

infringers settled, Newegg and SFA jointly agreed to 

consolidate the two lawsuits. 

Prior to the consolidation of the two suits, the district 

court held a Markman hearing regarding the disputed 

terms of the ’525 patent. The magistrate judge issued a 

Markman order on August 8, 2011, rejecting Newegg’s 

proposed constructions that limited the asserted claims to 

systems that assist a salesperson, or are used by a salesperson. The district court adopted the magistrate judge’s

constructions. 

After the district court granted the parties’ joint motion to consolidate the two lawsuits, the court held a 

second Markman hearing regarding the disputed terms of 

the ’341 patent. Newegg also moved for summary judgment that the claims at issue in both patents were invalid 

as indefinite. In that motion, Newegg argued that the 

system claims contained method step limitations, making 

it unclear when infringement occurs. While awaiting the 

district court’s decisions on claim construction for the ’341 

patent and definiteness of the patents, the parties filed a 

joint motion for an extension of the case schedule, arguing 

that the scheduled trial date conflicted with the scheduled 

trial date in another case in which SFA had asserted the 

same patents against a different defendant. See SFA 
4 SFA SYSTEMS, LLC v. NEWEGG INC. 

Sys., LLC v. Amazon.com, Inc., No. 6:11-cv-52-LED (E.D. 

Tex. Nov. 11, 2011), ECF No. 243. The district court 

denied the motion for an extension as premature, urging 

counsel to refile the request closer to trial. 

On April 11, 2013, the district court issued its Markman order on the terms in the ’341 patent, again siding 

with SFA that the claimed system did not require involvement of a salesperson. In that same order, the 

district court also denied Newegg’s motion for summary 

judgment that the claims at issue were indefinite. The 

next day, on April 12, 2013, SFA moved to dismiss the 

case against Newegg with prejudice under Federal Rule of 

Civil Procedure 41(a), and covenanted not to sue Newegg 

on the patents at issue. Newegg filed motions to recover 

its costs and fees following the dismissal of the case. 

After briefing was completed, but before the district 

court acted on Newegg’s motions for costs and fees, the 

Supreme Court decided Octane Fitness, LLC v. ICON 

Health & Fitness, Inc., 134 S. Ct. 1749 (2014). The parties did not request leave to file additional briefing and 

the district court decided that none was required. On 

July 8, 2014, the district court found that Newegg was the 

prevailing party and granted Newegg’s bill of costs. That 

same day, the district court also denied Newegg’s § 285 

motion for attorneys’ fees. The district court cited the 

Supreme Court’s standard in Octane Fitness, finding that, 

“[e]ven under the new, lower standard for an exceptional 

case designation, Newegg has provided no evidence that 

this case ‘stands out from others with respect to the 

substantive strength of [SFA’s] litigating position.’” SFA 

Sys., LLC v. 1-800-Flowers.com, Inc., No. 6:09-cv-340, slip 

op. at 4 (E.D. Tex. July 8, 2014), ECF No. 473 (“Section 

285 Order”) (quoting Octane Fitness, 134 S. Ct. at 1756). 

The district court rejected Newegg’s assertions that it 

would have prevailed on the merits, pointing out that the 

court had already rejected Newegg’s attempts to limit the 

scope of the patent through claim construction and had 
SFA SYSTEMS, LLC v. NEWEGG INC. 5

denied Newegg’s motion for summary judgment. The 

district court explained that Newegg’s primary complaint 

was that SFA filed many suits against many defendants, 

showing a pattern of abusive and vexatious litigation to 

extract settlements. The district court concluded, however, that “the fact that SFA has filed several lawsuits 

against numerous defendants is insufficient to render this 

case exceptional. In many cases, patent infringement is 

widespread and the patent owner may be forced to revert 

to widespread litigation against several infringing parties 

to enforce its intellectual property rights.” Id. 

Newegg timely appealed the district court’s denial of 

its § 285 attorneys’ fees motion.1 We have jurisdiction 

under 28 U.S.C. § 1295(a)(1).

II. DISCUSSION

Under 35 U.S.C. § 285, a “court in exceptional cases 

may award reasonable attorney fees to the prevailing 

party.” In Octane Fitness, the Supreme Court clarified

that:

an “exceptional” case 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. District courts may determine 

whether a case is “exceptional” in the case-by-case 

exercise of their discretion, considering the totality of the circumstances.

1 Although Newegg also argues the district court’s 

denial of its motion for experts’ fees on appeal, it fails to 

separately argue the merits of its case for experts’ fees. 

As a result, we will not separately address that issue.

 
6 SFA SYSTEMS, LLC v. NEWEGG INC. 

Octane Fitness, 134 S. Ct. at 1756 (footnote omitted). On 

appeal, we review the district court’s exceptional case 

determination under § 285 for an abuse of discretion. 

Highmark Inc. v. Allcare Health Mgmt. Sys., 134 S. Ct. 

1744, 1747 (2014). 

Newegg argues that the district court erred in finding 

that this case was not exceptional because: (1) the district 

court’s analyses on claim construction and indefiniteness

were wrong and, under the correct analyses, SFA’s lawsuit is meritless; and (2) SFA maintained and filed this 

lawsuit in bad faith for the improper purpose of obtaining 

a nuisance value settlement (“the unreasonable manner 

in which the case was litigated”). Octane Fitness, 134 S. 

Ct. at 1756. Although, under Octane Fitness, we ultimately consider these issues together under the “totality 

of the circumstances,” id., it helps to first parse Newegg’s 

arguments because Newegg argues that we should apply 

different standards of review to them. 

A. “The substantive strength of a party’s litigating

position”

Newegg contends that the district court erroneously 

construed the claims of the patents to not require a salesperson. Newegg asserts that, under the proper claim 

construction, its online sales website does not infringe 

because the website sells products without any salespeople, rendering SFA’s suit meritless. According to Newegg, 

moreover, the district court also erred in finding the 

claims at issue were not indefinite. Because claim construction and indefiniteness are matters of law, Newegg 

insists that we review the district court’s orders on these 

issues de novo as part of our review of the district court’s 

exceptional case determination under Highmark. Newegg 

argues that a searching merits review is required in this 

context because, otherwise, “plaintiffs could file frivolous 

cases in front of judges or courts that typically deny 

summary judgment or defer deciding summary judgment 
SFA SYSTEMS, LLC v. NEWEGG INC. 7

motions until the last minute before trial.” Appellant’s

Br. 29–30.

Newegg latches onto footnote 2 in Highmark, where 

the Supreme Court states that “[t]he abuse-of-discretion 

standard does not preclude an appellate court’s correction 

of a district court’s legal or factual error: ‘A district court 

would necessarily abuse its discretion if it based its ruling 

on an erroneous view of the law or on a clearly erroneous 

assessment of the evidence.’” 134 S. Ct. at 1748 n.2 

(quoting Cooter & Gell v. Hartmarx Corp., 496 U.S. 384, 

405 (1990)). This language, however, does not mean that 

we must evaluate and determine all issues of law decided 

by the district court de novo as part of our review of the 

district court’s exceptional case determination. 

In Octane Fitness, the Supreme Court made clear that 

it is the “substantive strength of the party’s litigating 

position” that is relevant to an exceptional case determination, not the correctness or eventual success of that 

position. Octane Fitness, 134 S. Ct. at 1756 (emphasis 

added). A party’s position on issues of law ultimately 

need not be correct for them to not “stand[] out,” or be 

found reasonable. Id.; cf. Raylon, LLC v. Complus Data 

Innovations, Inc., 700 F.3d 1361, 1368 (Fed. Cir. 2012) 

(“Reasonable minds can differ as to claim construction 

positions and losing constructions can nevertheless be 

nonfrivolous.”). Importantly, this means that we need not 

rule on the correctness of the district court’s decision on 

all underlying issues of law in reviewing a district court’s 

exceptional case determination. We need only determine 

whether the district court abused its discretion when it 

found that the party’s litigating position was not so meritless as to “stand out” from the norm and, thus, be exceptional. Octane Fitness, 134 S. Ct. at 1756.

In this case, we conclude that the district court did 

not abuse its discretion in finding that SFA’s claim construction and indefiniteness positions did not stand out. 
8 SFA SYSTEMS, LLC v. NEWEGG INC. 

Newegg does not contend that the district court used the 

wrong law, only that its conclusions were flawed. The 

district court did not clearly err in its assessment that

SFA’s claim construction position—that the claims at 

issue did not require a salesperson—was reasonable. See, 

e.g., ’525 patent col. 36 ll. 55–61 (requiring a “sales person” in dependent claims); ’341 patent col. 15 ll. 12–14 

(“The Kiosk module 302, illustrated in FIG. 3, is utilized 

at public forums where the salesperson may not necessarily be present.”); id. fig. 3 (depicting a “kiosk” and “web 

site” as inputs to the event manager). Nor did the district 

court clearly err in its assessment that the claims at issue 

were not indefinite because they were distinguishable 

from the claims in cases like IPXL Holdings, L.L.C. v. 

Amazon.com, Inc., 430 F.3d 1377, 1384 (Fed. Cir. 2005). 

See SFA Sys., LLC v. 1-800-Flowers.com, Inc., 940 F. 

Supp. 2d 433, 455 (E.D. Tex. 2013) (“However, the claims 

in those cases suffered from a true ambiguity as to 

whether the claims require building a product or performing a method. In particular, those cases involved apparatus claims incorporating steps where a user acts upon 

the system. Here, the claims involve capabilities of the 

system, as limitations on the ‘event manager’ and ‘subsystem’ structural elements.”). Where, as here, a party’s 

motion for fees does no more than refer the court back to 

its previous rulings, the district court has no obligation to 

reconsider or re-explain its prior rulings. Section 285 

Order at 4 (characterizing Newegg’s arguments regarding 

the merits of SFA’s claims as “bare allegations”).

To the extent Newegg argues that the district court 

erred when it stated that “evidence of the frivolity of the 

claims must be reasonably clear without requiring a 

‘mini-trial’ on the merits for attorneys’ fees purposes,” or 

somehow failed to give consideration to Newegg’s claim 

construction or indefiniteness positions, we reject that 

argument. Section 285 Order at 4–5. The district court 

considered and rejected Newegg’s claim construction 
SFA SYSTEMS, LLC v. NEWEGG INC. 9

arguments not once, but twice, after a fulsome claim 

construction process. And, there is nothing in the district 

court’s summary judgment ruling to indicate the court 

gave Newegg’s arguments scant attention or that its 

denial of summary judgment was predicated on an institutional bias against granting such requests. Newegg 

does not contend, moreover, that any of the rulings with 

which it disagrees in this case occurred at “the last minute before trial.” Appellant’s Br. 29–30; see SFA Sys., 

LLC v. 1-800-Flowers.com, Inc., No. 6:09-cv-340 (E.D. Tex. 

Oct. 4, 2013), ECF No. 461, at 12–15.

Accordingly, we find that the district court did not 

abuse its discretion in concluding that SFA’s litigation

position was not “one that stands out from others with 

respect to the substantive strength of [SFA’s] litigating 

position.” Octane Fitness, 134 S. Ct. at 1756. Again, our 

holding is based on the district court’s evaluation of the 

strength of SFA’s litigating position, not on the correctness of the district court’s claim construction and indefiniteness orders. We express no opinion as to whether we 

ultimately would have affirmed those determinations. 

B. “The unreasonable manner in which the case was 

litigated”

Newegg asserts that SFA brought this suit for the 

improper purpose of obtaining a nuisance value settlement. Newegg alleges that SFA dragged out the litigation 

to increase Newegg’s litigation costs and that SFA dismissed the suit as soon as it realized that Newegg was not 

going to settle. As evidence, Newegg submitted the

settlement amounts that SFA received from previous 

accused infringers, which, according to Newegg, were all 

substantially below the cost of defending a patent litigation suit and below what SFA could have recovered in 

damages if it had prevailed in those actions. Newegg 

proffered no other evidence regarding SFA’s motivations.
10 SFA SYSTEMS, LLC v. NEWEGG INC. 

Prior to Octane Fitness, in addition to the test for 

§ 285 fees set out in Brooks Furniture Manufacturing, Inc. 

v. Dutailier International, Inc., 393 F.3d 1378 (Fed. Cir. 

2005), we observed that a district court may declare a 

case exceptional based on unreasonable and vexatious 

litigation tactics, even where it finds the legal theories 

advanced not objectively baseless. See, e.g., MarcTec, 

LLC v. Johnson & Johnson, 664 F.3d 907, 919 (Fed. Cir. 

2012) (“[T]he district court further found that [the patentee] engaged in litigation misconduct. This finding provides a separate and independent basis for the court’s 

decision to award attorney fees.”); Eon-Net LP v. Flagstar 

Bancorp, 653 F.3d 1314, 1324 (Fed. Cir. 2011) (“[A]s a 

general matter, we have observed that many varieties of 

misconduct can support a district court’s exceptional case 

finding, including lodging frivolous filings and engaging 

in vexatious or unjustified litigation.”). And, although the 

Supreme Court rejected our Brooks Furniture test in

Octane Fitness, it gave no indication that we should 

rethink our litigation misconduct line of § 285 cases. 

Indeed, the Supreme Court sanctioned a district court’s 

discretion to find a case exceptional based on “the unreasonable manner in which the case was litigated.” Octane 

Fitness, 134 S. Ct. at 1756. Accordingly, we conclude that, 

under Octane Fitness, the district court must consider 

whether the case was litigated in an unreasonable manner as part of its exceptional case determination, and that 

district courts can turn to our pre-Octane Fitness case law 

for guidance.

For example, in Eon-Net, this court affirmed the 

district court’s finding of litigation misconduct based on 

the patentee’s destruction of relevant documents and 

lodging of incomplete and misleading extrinsic evidence. 

653 F.3d at 1324–25. This court also concluded that the 

record supported the district court’s finding that the 

patentee acted in subjective bad faith “by exploiting the 

high cost to defend complex litigation to extract a nui-
SFA SYSTEMS, LLC v. NEWEGG INC. 11

sance value settlement.” Id. at 1327. We held that the 

district court properly considered the patentee’s “ability to 

impose high costs to defend against its meritless claims,” 

and inducement of settlement payments by proposing low 

settlement offers of “less than ten percent of the cost that 

[the accused infringer] expended to defend suit.” Id. at 

1327; see Kilopass Tech., Inc. v. Sidense Corp., 738 F.3d 

1302, 1311 (Fed. Cir. 2013) (holding that the district court 

should consider the “totality of the circumstances” in 

determining whether the patentee acted in subjective bad 

faith and should consider whether circumstantial evidence would support an inference of bad faith). 

Similarly, in MarcTec, we affirmed the district court’s 

finding of litigation misconduct sufficient to support an 

award of attorneys’ fees because the patentee “(1) misrepresented both the law of claim construction and the constructions ultimately adopted by the court; and (2) 

introduced and relied on expert testimony that failed to 

meet even minimal standards of reliability, thereby 

prolonging the litigation and the expenses attendant 

thereto.” 664 F.3d at 920. This court explained that the 

district court’s findings were sufficient to support the 

conclusion that the patentee engaged in litigation misconduct because it “not only initiated a frivolous lawsuit, 

it persisted in advancing unfounded arguments that 

unnecessarily extended this litigation and caused [the 

accused infringer] to incur needless litigation expenses. 

This vexatious conduct is, by definition, litigation misconduct, and provides a separate and independent basis 

supporting the district court’s determination that this 

case is exceptional.” Id. at 920–21.

In Monolithic Power Systems, Inc. v. O2 Micro International, Ltd., 726 F.3d 1359 (Fed. Cir. 2013), moreover, 

this court affirmed the district court’s award of attorneys’ 

fees based on “an overall vexatious litigation strategy and 

numerous instances of litigation misconduct.” 726 F.3d at 

1367. The district court found that, over the course of a 
12 SFA SYSTEMS, LLC v. NEWEGG INC. 

decade of litigation between the two parties, the patentee 

exhibited a pattern of litigation where it would sue the 

accused infringer’s customers to prompt the accused 

infringer to file a declaratory judgment action, only to 

withdraw its claims after substantial litigation had taken 

place. Id. The district court also found that the patentee 

misrepresented the date of key evidence, and tried to 

mask its false testimony through motion practice. Id. 

We agree with Newegg, accordingly, that a pattern of 

litigation abuses characterized by the repeated filing of 

patent infringement actions for the sole purpose of forcing 

settlements, with no intention of testing the merits of 

one’s claims, is relevant to a district court’s exceptional 

case determination under § 285. And, we agree with 

Newegg, moreover, that to the extent the district court’s 

opinion in this case can be read to discount the motivations behind a patentee’s litigation history, the district 

court was wrong. The problem with Newegg’s request 

that we reverse the district court’s exceptional case determination on these grounds, however, is its failure to 

make a record supporting its characterization of SFA’s 

improper motivations.

Newegg argued to the district court that SFA engaged 

in a vexatious litigation strategy based on evidence that: 

(1) SFA dismissed its claims against Newegg once it was 

faced with the prospect of a trial in which the merits of its 

claims would be tested; (2) SFA sued many defendants for 

infringement of the same patents; and (3) SFA frequently 

settled with prior defendants for relatively small 

amounts. See SFA Sys., LLC v. 1-800-Flowers.com, Inc., 

No. 6:09-cv-340 (E.D. Tex. Oct. 4, 2013), ECF No. 461, at 

12. On this record, we cannot say that the district court 

abused its discretion in finding that Newegg’s evidence 

was insufficient to show that SFA actually litigated this 

case in an “unreasonable manner.” Octane Fitness, 134 S. 

Ct. at 1756. “[B]ecause [the district court] lives with the 

case over a prolonged period of time,” Highmark, 134 S. 
SFA SYSTEMS, LLC v. NEWEGG INC. 13

Ct. at 1748, it is in a better position to determine whether 

a case is exceptional and it has discretion to evaluate the 

facts on a case-by-case basis. Octane Fitness, 134 S. Ct. at 

1756. Although SFA dismissed this suit after the court 

had ruled in its favor on claim construction and only six 

months before trial, Newegg presented no evidence that 

the dismissal was because SFA knew that Newegg was 

not going to settle. In fact, SFA continued to litigate the 

same patent in its suit against Amazon.com, Inc. (“Amazon”) with no guarantee of obtaining a settlement in that 

case. And, SFA argues that it dismissed its suit against 

Newegg soon after the court denied its motion to continue 

trial so its counsel could focus on its potentially higher 

value action against Amazon, which was scheduled for 

trial on the same day. Both of these cases were before the 

same judge, so the district court was in the best position 

to evaluate SFA’s dismissal of one suit and continuance of 

another. We conclude, moreover, that the district court 

did not abuse its discretion in finding that the existence of 

other lawsuits by SFA does not, without more, render this

case exceptional. The mere existence of these other suits 

does not mandate negative inferences about the merits or 

purpose of this suit. 

Although Newegg presented evidence of amounts SFA 

had obtained in previous settlements, there were several 

payments that were inconsistent with Newegg’s argument 

that SFA always settled with accused infringers for far 

less than the cost to prosecute a case to judgment. Although Newegg argued at oral argument that the larger 

amounts were to settle claims of a different patent, Oral 

Arg. at 2:03, SFA Sys., LLC v. Newegg Inc., 2014-1712, 

available at http://oralarguments.cafc.uscourts.gov/default

.aspx?/fl=2014-11712.mp3, those larger settlements imply 

that SFA does not always seek nuisance value settlements for amounts far less than the cost of litigation as 

Newegg asserts. Accordingly, the district court’s unwillingness to read bad faith motivations into SFA’s settle-
14 SFA SYSTEMS, LLC v. NEWEGG INC. 

ment amounts, without more evidence about what 

prompted those settlements, was neither clearly erroneous nor an abuse of discretion. 

As discussed above, moreover, the district court did 

not abuse its discretion in finding that SFA’s litigating 

position does not stand out as meritless. SFA’s prior 

lawsuits, therefore, differ from the pattern of litigation in 

Eon-Net where we affirmed the finding that the patentee’s 

pattern of infringement claims was “meritless” and in bad 

faith. 653 F.3d at 1327–28. 

Even taking all of this evidence together—SFA’s dismissal of this case, the existence of other lawsuits by SFA, 

and its previous settlement amounts—we cannot conclude

that the district court abused its discretion in finding that 

this case did not “stand[] out from others with respect to 

. . . the unreasonable manner in which the case was 

litigated.” Octane Fitness, 134 S. Ct. at 1756. Notably, 

the district court did not find any evidence of misrepresentation or misleading statements by SFA during the 

course of this litigation. Cf. Monolithic Power, 726 F.3d at 

1367 (finding that the patentee misrepresented the date 

of key evidence, and tried to mask false testimony 

through motion practice); MarcTec, 664 F.3d at 920 

(finding that the patentee misrepresented both the law of 

claim construction and the constructions ultimately 

adopted by the court); Eon-Net, 653 F.3d at 1324–25 

(finding that the patentee lodged incomplete and misleading extrinsic evidence). 

Importantly, we do not hold that the district court 

cannot consider a patentee’s pattern of prior litigation in 

determining whether a case is exceptional. Indeed, our 

§ 285 cases that address litigation misconduct, which 

were not overruled by Octane Fitness, make clear that a 

district court should consider a patentee’s pattern of 

litigation where adequate evidence of an abusive pattern 

is presented. In this case, we merely hold that the district 
SFA SYSTEMS, LLC v. NEWEGG INC. 15

court did not abuse its discretion in finding that Newegg 

failed to proffer sufficient evidence of a pattern of litigation misconduct by SFA. Section 285 Order at 5 (characterizing Newegg’s motion as being predicated on 

“insufficient evidence”). 

III. CONCLUSION

 Because we conclude that the district court did not 

abuse its discretion in finding that SFA’s litigating position and the manner in which it litigated this case did not 

stand out, we affirm the district court’s determination 

that Newegg failed to establish that this case is exceptional under § 285. 

AFFIRMED