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6 

PETER v. NANTKWEST, INC. 

Opinion of the Court 

particularly important because §145 permits an unsuccess-
ful government agency to recover its expenses from a pre-
vailing party.  Reading §145 to award attorney’s fees in that
circumstance “would be a radical departure from longstand-
ing fee-shifting principles adhered to in a wide range of con-
texts.”  Ruckelshaus, 463 U. S., at 683. 

The American Rule thus provides the starting point for
assessing  whether  §145  authorizes  payment  of  the  PTO’s 
legal fees. 

III 
To determine whether Congress intended to depart from
the American Rule presumption, the Court first “look[s] to
the language of the section” at issue.  Hardt, 560 U. S., at 
254  (internal  quotation  marks  omitted).  While  “[t]he  ab-
sence of [a] specific reference to attorney’s fees is not dis-
positive,” Key Tronic Corp. v. United States, 511 U. S. 809, 
815  (1994),  Congress  must  provide  a  sufficiently  “specific
and explicit” indication of its intent to overcome the Amer-
ican Rule’s presumption against fee shifting.  Alyeska Pipe-
line, 421 U. S., at 260. 

A 
The reference to “expenses” in §145 does not invoke attor-
ney’s fees with the kind of “clarity we have required to de-
viate from the American Rule.”  Baker Botts, 576 U. S., at 
___ (slip op., at 4). 

Definitions  of  “expenses”  provide  scant  guidance.    The 
term, standing alone, encompasses wide-ranging “expendi-
ture[s] of money, time, labor, or resources to accomplish a 
result,”  Black’s  Law  Dictionary  698  (10th  ed.  2014),
“charges or costs met with in . . . doing one’s work,” Web-
ster’s New World College Dictionary 511 (5th ed. 2014), and 
“outlay[s]” for labor, Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of Law 
180 (1996); see also N. Webster, An American Dictionary of 
the English Language 319 (3d ed. 1830) (defining the term