Court Opinion

ID: 9392837
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-05-08 14:00:40.640239+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:18:49.321243
License: Public Domain

Case: 22-1363   Document: 33     Page: 1   Filed: 05/08/2023

   United States Court of Appeals
       for the Federal Circuit
                 ______________________

        UNITED CANNABIS CORPORATION,
                Plaintiff-Appellee

                            v.

           PURE HEMP COLLECTIVE INC.,
                Defendant-Appellant
               ______________________

                       2022-1363
                 ______________________

     Appeal from the United States District Court for the
 District of Colorado in No. 1:18-cv-01922-WJM-NYW,
 Judge William J. Martinez.
                  ______________________

                  Decided: May 8, 2023
                 ______________________

     ORION ARMON, Cooley LLP, Denver, CO, argued for
 plaintiff-appellee.

    JAMES R. GOURLEY, Carstens, Allen, & Gourley, LLP,
 Plano, TX, argued for defendant-appellant.
                 ______________________

  Before LOURIE, CUNNINGHAM, and STARK, Circuit Judges.
Case: 22-1363     Document: 33     Page: 2    Filed: 05/08/2023

 2                           UNITED CANNABIS CORPORATION v.
                                  PURE HEMP COLLECTIVE INC.

 STARK, Circuit Judge.
      United Cannabis Corporation (“UCANN”) sued Pure
 Hemp Collective (“Pure Hemp”) for infringement of U.S.
 Patent No. 9,730,911 (the “’911 patent”) in the United
 States District Court for the District of Colorado. After pro-
 longed litigation, UCANN and Pure Hemp stipulated to the
 dismissal of their claims and counterclaims. Pure Hemp
 then moved for attorney fees and sanctions, which the dis-
 trict court denied. Pure Hemp asks us to reverse and de-
 clare this case exceptional. We affirm.
                               I
     UCANN filed suit in the District of Colorado in July
 2018, accusing Pure Hemp of infringing the ’911 patent.
 The ’911 patent, entitled “Cannabis Extracts and Methods
 of Preparing and Using the Same,” discloses the “extraction
 of pharmaceutically active components . . . more particu-
 larly . . . botanical drug substance (BDS) comprising can-
 nabinoids obtained by extraction from cannabis.”
 ’911 patent 1:14-17. In April 2020, UCANN filed for bank-
 ruptcy, which automatically stayed this litigation. After
 the bankruptcy petition was dismissed in January 2021,
 the parties stipulated to the dismissal of this patent case.
 UCANN’s infringement claims were dismissed with preju-
 dice while Pure Hemp’s invalidity and inequitable conduct
 counterclaims were dismissed without prejudice. The stip-
 ulation was silent on the issue of attorney fees.
      Subsequently, on April 14, 2021, Pure Hemp moved for
 an award of attorney fees pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 285,
 28 U.S.C. § 1927, and the district court’s inherent author-
 ity. Pure Hemp asserted two bases for its requested relief:
 (1) UCANN’s prosecution counsel had allegedly committed
 inequitable conduct by copying text from a piece of prior
 art, U.S. Patent Publication No. 2004/0033280 (“Whittle”),
 into the specification of the ’911 patent and then not dis-
 closing Whittle to the Patent and Trademark Office
 (“PTO”) as prior art; and (2) UCANN’s litigation counsel,
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 UNITED CANNABIS CORPORATION     v.                            3
 PURE HEMP COLLECTIVE INC.

 Cooley LLP, purportedly took conflicting positions in its
 representation of UCANN and another client, GW Pharma
 (the owner of Whittle). Pure Hemp expressly notified the
 district court that it did not seek any further proceedings,
 including a trial or evidentiary hearing, in connection with
 its motion. See, e.g., ECF No. 12 at 2 (Pure Hemp reiterat-
 ing to this court it “did not request an evidentiary hearing
 at the district court, and is not requesting one here”). Con-
 sequently, the district court resolved and denied the motion
 for attorney fees based on the existing record. In doing so,
 the district court explained:
     Ultimately, the Court finds that Defendant has
     failed to establish that it is the prevailing party un-
     der section 285, that this is an “exceptional” case
     warranting an attorney’s fee award, or that Plain-
     tiff’s counsel has acted in a vexatious or otherwise
     unreasonable manner. In making this determina-
     tion, the Court notes that the parties stipulated to
     dismissal of this case before many of the factual dis-
     putes Defendant cites were adjudicated on the mer-
     its. (ECF No. 91.) The record on the substantive
     merits and the materiality of Plaintiff’s purport-
     edly inequitable conduct is woefully undeveloped,
     and as such, does not paint a persuasive picture for
     awarding fees.
 J.A. 2-3 (emphasis in original). Pure Hemp timely ap-
 pealed. We have jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C.
 § 1295(a)(1).
                               II
     Pure Hemp sought to recover its attorney fees under
 three different legal authorities, so we set out the legal
 standards applicable to our review of each of them.
     First, pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 285, “[t]he court in ex-
 ceptional cases may award reasonable attorney fees to the
 prevailing party.” An exceptional case is “simply one that
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 4                            UNITED CANNABIS CORPORATION v.
                                   PURE HEMP COLLECTIVE INC.

 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 unrea-
 sonable manner in which the case was litigated.” Octane
 Fitness, LLC v. ICON Health & Fitness, Inc., 572 U.S. 545,
 554 (2014). Relevant considerations may include “frivo-
 lousness, motivation, objective unreasonableness (both in
 the factual and legal components of the case) and the need
 in particular circumstances to advance considerations of
 compensation and deterrence.” Id. at 554 n.6. In deter-
 mining if a case is exceptional within the meaning of the
 statute, district courts, “in the case-by-case exercise of their
 discretion, consider[] the totality of the circumstances.” Id.
 at 554. The “fee-seeking party must show that it is entitled
 to § 285 fees by a ‘preponderance of evidence.’” Bayer Crop-
 Science AG v. Dow AgroSciences LLC, 851 F.3d 1302, 1305
 (Fed. Cir. 2017) (quoting Octane Fitness, 572 U.S. at 557-
 58).
     We apply “an abuse-of-discretion standard in review-
 ing all aspects of a district court’s § 285 determination.”
 Highmark Inc. v. Allcare Health Mgmt. Sys., Inc., 572 U.S.
 559, 564 (2014). “To meet the abuse-of-discretion standard,
 the [appellant] must show that the district court made a
 clear error of judgment in weighing relevant factors or in
 basing its decision on an error of law or on clearly errone-
 ous factual findings.” Bayer CropScience, 851 F.3d at 1306
 (internal quotation marks omitted).
     Second, 28 U.S.C. § 1927 states:
     Any attorney . . . admitted to conduct cases in any
     court of the United States . . . who so multiplies the
     proceedings in any case unreasonably and vexa-
     tiously may be required by the court to satisfy per-
     sonally the excess costs, expenses, and attorneys’
     fees reasonably incurred because of such conduct.
     We review § 1927 motions under the law of the regional
 circuit. See Gust, Inc. v. Alphacap Ventures, LLC, 905 F.3d
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 PURE HEMP COLLECTIVE INC.

 1321, 1327 (Fed. Cir. 2018). The Tenth Circuit has cau-
 tioned that § 1927 is an “extreme standard” and allows for
 relief only when conduct “manifests either intentional or
 reckless disregard of the attorney’s duties to the court.”
 White v. Am. Airlines, Inc., 915 F.2d 1414, 1427 (10th Cir.
 1990). The Tenth Circuit reviews “an award of sanctions
 under § 1927 only for abuse of discretion,” but where the
 exercise of discretion depends “on the resolution of a purely
 legal issue, . . . we approach such a question de novo.”
 Hamilton v. Boise Cascade Express, 519 F.3d 1197, 1202
 (10th Cir. 2008). “A district court abuses its discretion
 when it renders an arbitrary, capricious, whimsical, or
 manifestly unreasonable judgment.”           United States
 v. Silva, 889 F.3d 704, 709 (10th Cir. 2018).
     Third, “in narrowly defined circumstances federal
 courts have inherent power to assess attorney’s fees against
 counsel,” including for acting in “bad faith, vexatiously,
 wantonly, or for oppressive reasons.” Chambers v. NASCO,
 Inc., 501 U.S. 32, 45-46 (1991) (emphasis added). “When
 reviewing the imposition of sanctions under a district
 court’s inherent powers, we apply the law of the regional
 circuit in which the district court sits.” Monsanto Co.
 v. E.I. Du Pont de Nemours & Co., 748 F.3d 1189, 1196
 (Fed. Cir. 2014). The Tenth Circuit reviews a district
 court’s sanctions decision made under the court’s inherent
 powers for abuse of discretion. See O’Rourke v. Dominion
 Voting Sys., Inc., 2022 WL 17588344, at *2 (10th Cir.
 Dec. 13, 2022).
                              III
     In asking us to reverse the denial of attorney fees, Pure
 Hemp identifies three supposed errors committed by the
 district court: (1) failing to find Pure Hemp to be the pre-
 vailing party in the litigation; (2) not concluding that the
 undisputed facts establish inequitable conduct; and (3) not
 recognizing that UCANN’s attorneys had a conflict of
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 6                           UNITED CANNABIS CORPORATION v.
                                  PURE HEMP COLLECTIVE INC.

 interest for which they should be sanctioned. 1 We address
 each issue in turn.
                               A
     Under § 285, only a prevailing party is eligible to be
 awarded attorney fees. The district court committed error
 in not finding Pure Hemp to be the prevailing party in this
 action. However, this error was harmless.
     “[I]n identifying a prevailing party, we must consider
 whether the district court’s decision effects or rebuffs a
 plaintiff’s attempt to effect a material alteration in the le-
 gal relationship between the parties.” B.E. Tech., L.L.C.
 v. Facebook, Inc., 940 F.3d 675, 679 (Fed. Cir. 2019) (inter-
 nal quotation marks omitted). Here, UCANN sued Pure
 Hemp for patent infringement and, thereby, attempted to
 effect a material alteration in the parties’ relationship by
 imposing liability on Pure Hemp. This effort failed, as the
 case ended – by agreement – with dismissal of UCANN’s
 patent infringement claims with prejudice. Hence, Pure
 Hemp successfully rebuffed UCANN’s lawsuit and ensured
 that UCANN can never again assert the same patents
 against Pure Hemp’s same accused products; both out-
 comes make Pure Hemp the prevailing party. See Raniere
 v. Microsoft Corp., 887 F.3d 1298, 1306 (Fed. Cir. 2018)
 (“Appellees ‘won’ through the court’s dismissal of [appel-
 lant’s] case with prejudice – they prevented [appellant]

     1   As UCANN points out, in the district court Pure
 Hemp advocated five grounds for why this case is purport-
 edly exceptional, but it only presses two of these grounds
 on appeal. We agree with UCANN that the other three ba-
 ses are forfeited, see Becton Dickinson & Co. v. C.R. Bard,
 Inc., 922 F.2d 792, 800 (Fed. Cir. 1990) (“[A]n issue not
 raised by an appellant in its opening brief . . . is waived.”),
 and we need not discuss them.
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 UNITED CANNABIS CORPORATION    v.                           7
 PURE HEMP COLLECTIVE INC.

 from achieving a material alteration of the relationship be-
 tween them, based on a decision marked by ‘judicial impri-
 matur.’”); Highway Equip. Co. v. FECO, Ltd., 469 F.3d
 1027, 1035 (Fed. Cir. 2006) (“[W]e conclude that as a mat-
 ter of patent law, the dismissal with prejudice . . . has the
 necessary judicial imprimatur to constitute a judicially
 sanctioned change in the legal relationship of the parties,
 such that the district court properly could entertain [a] fee
 claim under 35 U.S.C. § 285.”).
      UCANN has never contested, before the district court
 or us, that Pure Hemp is the prevailing party. Instead,
 UCANN argues that the district court’s error on this point
 is harmless because the district court provided additional
 reasons for denying Pure Hemp’s motion. We agree with
 UCANN. After erroneously stating that Pure Hemp had
 not established it was the prevailing party, the district
 court went on to consider the question of whether this case
 is exceptional and concluded that Pure Hemp failed to meet
 its burden on this additional, necessary element of its mo-
 tion. As we explain below, the district court did not abuse
 its discretion in finding this case unexceptional. Therefore,
 the court’s error was harmless. See 28 U.S.C. § 2111 (di-
 recting appellate courts to review cases without regard to
 errors that do not affect parties’ “substantial rights”);
 Bridges v. Wilson, 996 F.3d 1094, 1099 (10th Cir. 2021)
 (“The appellate court exercises common sense, trying to
 make a realistic assessment of the practical likelihood that
 the result in the district court would have been different
 had the error not occurred.”) (internal quotation marks
 omitted).
                              B
     “To prove inequitable conduct, the challenger must
 show by clear and convincing evidence that the patent ap-
 plicant (1) misrepresented or omitted information material
 to patentability, and (2) did so with specific intent to mis-
 lead or deceive the PTO.” In re Rosuvastatin Calcium Pat.
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 8                           UNITED CANNABIS CORPORATION v.
                                  PURE HEMP COLLECTIVE INC.

 Litig., 703 F.3d 511, 519 (Fed. Cir. 2012). “We review the
 district court’s findings of materiality and intent for clear
 error.” Barry v. Medtronic, Inc., 914 F.3d 1310, 1333 (Fed.
 Cir. 2019) (alterations in original omitted).
      In this case, we have no findings to review. The district
 court made no findings, and was not required to do so, be-
 cause Pure Hemp voluntarily dismissed its counterclaim
 for inequitable conduct before any such findings had been
 made and, thereafter, in connection with its post-dismissal
 motion for attorney fees, Pure Hemp told the district court
 it did not seek any further evidentiary proceedings. See
 ECF No. 12 at 2 (Pure Hemp acknowledging it “did not re-
 quest an evidentiary hearing at the district court, and is
 not requesting one here”); Oral Arg. at 2:40-45 (Q: “Did you
 request a post-judgment evidentiary hearing?” A: “I did
 not.”). It is self-evident that a district court does not abuse
 its discretion by not conducting a post-dismissal inequita-
 ble conduct proceeding, in aid of resolution of a § 285 mo-
 tion, when the moving party explicitly disclaims any desire
 for such a proceeding. See Thermolife Int’l LLC v. GNC
 Corp., 922 F.3d 1347, 1357 (Fed. Cir. 2019) (“[W]e have em-
 phasized the wide latitude district courts have to refuse to
 add to the burdens of litigation by opening up issues that
 have not been litigated but are asserted as bases for a fee
 award.”) (emphasis in original).
     Pure Hemp insists that the lack of factual findings on
 either element of an inequitable conduct claim – specific
 intent to deceive the PTO and materiality of the undis-
 closed prior art reference – does not doom its appeal be-
 cause Pure Hemp can satisfy its burden based on the
 undisputed facts in the record. Even assuming this is the-
 oretically possible, Pure Hemp’s contention is unavailing
 here, as the limited record before us reveals genuine dis-
 putes with respect to both elements. The attorney Pure
 Hemp accuses of committing inequitable conduct, Cynthia
 Kozakiewicz, explained why she viewed the Whittle refer-
 ence to be immaterial and why she believed in good faith
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 PURE HEMP COLLECTIVE INC.

 she did not have to disclose it to the PTO. See J.A. 282-84.
 That Pure Hemp does not believe this testimony – and that
 Pure Hemp may have been able to prove at a trial, by clear
 and convincing evidence, that Ms. Kozakiewicz acted with
 a specific intent to deceive – is irrelevant. What matters to
 this appeal, and what the district court was free to treat as
 dispositive in denying the motion, is that the record demon-
 strates (at best for Pure Hemp) a genuine dispute as to the
 material fact of intent; meaning Pure Hemp failed to meet
 its burden to prove that this case is exceptional due to in-
 equitable conduct. Pure Hemp did not seek further pro-
 ceedings to try to make the required showing of intent to
 deceive, so it was entirely proper for the district court to
 reject the motion based solely on the limited record before
 it.
      The analysis is much the same on the issue of the ma-
 teriality of the Whittle reference. UCANN made argu-
 ments for non-materiality, and Pure Hemp argued for
 materiality; the procedural posture did not require the dis-
 trict court to resolve this dispute (and it did not), so the
 record continues to contain (at best for Pure Hemp) a gen-
 uine dispute on the material fact of materiality. Thus,
 again, Pure Hemp failed to show that this case is excep-
 tional due to inequitable conduct.
     Pure Hemp places great emphasis on another theory of
 inequitable conduct, which we also conclude lacks merit.
 Pure Hemp points out that UCANN’s prosecution counsel
 copied and pasted portions of Whittle and another prior art
 reference into the ’911 patent application. She did not dis-
 close Whittle to the PTO. In Pure Hemp’s view, this undis-
 closed copying and pasting is inequitable conduct.
 Appellant Br. at 26 (“The lack of disclosure is the problem
 here – not the copying and pasting by itself.”). As support,
 Pure Hemp relies on two district court cases, see CCC
 Group, Inc. v. Martin Engineering Co., 683 F. Supp. 2d
 1201 (D. Colo. 2010), and American Calcar, Inc. v. Ameri-
 can Honda Motor Co., 2012 WL 1328640 (S.D. Cal. Apr. 17,
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 10                          UNITED CANNABIS CORPORATION v.
                                  PURE HEMP COLLECTIVE INC.

 2012), aff’d, 768 F.3d 1185 (Fed. Cir. 2014), neither of
 which are binding, and both of which turn on specific facts
 not present here. See CCC Grp., 683 F. Supp. 2d at 1209
 (finding inequitable conduct where patent applicant pro-
 vided “a misleading portrayal of prior art” by including fig-
 ure from prior art without identifying source and by
 misstating what figure represented); Am. Calcar, 2012 WL
 1328640, at *5, *8 (finding inequitable conduct where “the
 overwhelming evidence indicate[d] [applicant] used the
 [prior art] while working on the patent application” and
 “the operational details of the [prior art] [were] material”
 to patentability). In both cases, the courts made specific
 findings that the copied prior art was material, while here
 the district court made no such finding. Additionally, Ms.
 Kozakiewicz provided an explanation for her copying and
 pasting – essentially that it was all background infor-
 mation well-known to a person of ordinary skill in the art
 – and the undeveloped record gives us no reason to disbe-
 lieve her testimony. J.A. 282-84, 298.
      Pure Hemp offers another argument for why it can win
 this appeal even if we find, as we have, that the record con-
 tains genuine disputes of material fact: that we can make
 our own findings on intent to deceive and materiality. See,
 e.g., Appellant Br. at 14 (“When this Court considers all of
 the evidence, it can not only reverse the district court’s
 findings, it can also affirmatively hold that this case was
 exceptional . . . .”); id. at 24 (suggesting this Court could
 find that “[t]he single most reasonable inference based on
 all of the actions during prosecution of the [’]911 Patent is
 that Whittle was withheld from the USPTO with intent to
 deceive”). Pure Hemp fundamentally misunderstands our
 role as a court of appeals. See, e.g., Spineology, Inc. v.
 Wright Med. Tech., Inc., 910 F.3d 1227, 1230 (Fed. Cir.
 2018) (“We will not force the district court, on a motion for
 attorney fees, to conduct the trial it never had . . . and we
 – an appellate court – will certainly not conduct that trial
 in the first instance.”) (emphasis added); Impax Labs. Inc.
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 UNITED CANNABIS CORPORATION    v.                          11
 PURE HEMP COLLECTIVE INC.

 v. Lannett Holdings Inc., 893 F.3d 1372, 1382 (Fed. Cir.
 2018) (“We do not and should not reweigh evidence or make
 factual findings anew on appeal.”). We reject Pure Hemp’s
 invitation to invade the province of the district court and
 make our own findings of fact.
     Pure Hemp offers one final argument with respect to
 inequitable conduct: that the district court erred in failing
 to provide a more fulsome analysis. This contention, too,
 lacks merit. The district court plainly stated that it consid-
 ered “all of the parties’ arguments,” J.A. 2, and Pure Hemp
 provides no reason for us to question this statement. See
 Novartis AG v. Torrent Pharms. Ltd., 853 F.3d 1316, 1328
 (Fed. Cir. 2017) (“[T]his court has said on multiple occa-
 sions that failure to explicitly discuss every issue or every
 piece of evidence does not alone establish that the tribunal
 did not consider it.”); Lab. Corp. of Am. Holdings v. Chiron
 Corp., 384 F.3d 1326, 1332 (Fed. Cir. 2004) (stating that
 district court’s failure to discuss issue did not mean issue
 was not considered). Moreover, “[b]ecause of the high level
 of deference owed to district courts on this issue and the
 limited circumstances that could qualify as exceptional,
 this court has not imposed a blanket requirement that a
 district court provide its reasoning in attorney fee cases.”
 Wedgetail Ltd. v. Huddleston Deluxe, Inc., 576 F.3d 1302,
 1305 (Fed. Cir. 2009); see also Serio-US Indus., Inc. v. Plas-
 tic Recovery Techs. Corp., 459 F.3d 1311, 1322 (Fed. Cir.
 2006) (upholding denial of fees even without any district
 court opinion where “the record as a whole . . . adequately
 supports the denial of attorney fees”). 2 We decline to im-
 pose such a requirement now.

     2    “Instead, we have held only that a statement of the
 district court’s reasoning is generally necessary to enable
 review when an attorney fees motion is granted or when
 attorney fees are denied despite the presence of one or more
 of the [following] circumstances”: “inequitable conduct
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 12                          UNITED CANNABIS CORPORATION v.
                                  PURE HEMP COLLECTIVE INC.

                               C
      Pure Hemp additionally argues that this case is excep-
 tional because UCANN’s attorneys suffered from a conflict
 of interest for which they should be sanctioned. We reject
 this argument because it is waived. Pure Hemp did not cite
 Rule 1.7 of the Model Rules of Professional Conduct, which
 is the basis for its conflict contention before us, to the dis-
 trict court. See In re Google Tech. Holdings LLC, 980 F.3d
 858, 863 (Fed. Cir. 2020) (“We have regularly stated and
 applied the important principle that a position not pre-
 sented in the tribunal under review will not be considered
 on appeal in the absence of exceptional circumstances.”).
     Pure Hemp’s allegations also lack merit. 3 Rule 1.7 di-
 rects that “a lawyer shall not represent a client if the rep-
 resentation involves a concurrent conflict of interest,” and
 goes on to define a concurrent conflict of interest as includ-
 ing where (as arguably relevant here) “the representation
 of one client will be directly adverse to another client.” To
 evaluate whether UCANN suffers from such a conflict, we
 must look to “the total context.” Dr. Falk Pharma GmbH
 v. GeneriCo, LLC, 916 F.3d 975, 982 (Fed. Cir. 2019). Here,
 the predominant feature of the context is the lack of evi-
 dence. While Pure Hemp alleges that Cooley simultane-
 ously took conflicting positions for two of its clients, by
 prosecuting identical patents for both UCANN and GW
 Pharma, see Appellant Br. at 28 (“Cooley attorneys were

 before the PTO; litigation misconduct; vexatious, unjusti-
 fied, and otherwise bad faith litigation; a frivolous suit or
 willful infringement.” Wedgetail, 576 F.3d at 1304-05 (in-
 ternal citations omitted). None of these circumstances is
 present here.

      3  We apply regional circuit law to the issue of conflict
 of interest. See Monsanto, 748 F.3d at 1196.
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 taking different positions in different forums on a critical
 issue: who invented a liquid cannabinoid formulation
 wherein at least 95% of the total cannabinoids is CBD.”), it
 has presented no evidence that the patents Cooley prose-
 cuted and obtained are identical. See J.A. 205-06 (Pure
 Hemp’s district court argument, which is devoid of evi-
 dence). Pure Hemp also failed to show that anything Coo-
 ley did in its representation of UCANN was directly
 adverse to the interests of GW Pharma, or vice versa.
 Therefore, even if we were to reach the merits, we would
 reject Pure Hemp’s argument that this case is exceptional
 due to an unproven conflict of interest suffered by
 UCANN’s attorneys at Cooley. 4
                             IV
     Finally, we address whether Pure Hemp’s appeal is
 frivolous. We do so because UCANN previously moved to
 sanction Pure Hemp for a frivolous appeal and it is our un-
 derstanding, based on the briefing and oral argument, that
 UCANN continues to view this appeal as frivolous. See
 Oral Arg. at 18:01-27. We denied the prior motion without
 prejudice, to allow UCANN to potentially renew its motion
 after disposition of the merits of the appeal. ECF No. 15.
 Rather than requiring the parties to brief a motion we
 know we would deny, we take this opportunity to explain
 why, although a close call, we deem this appeal not frivo-
 lous.
     As we have explained:

     4   Particularly given the lack of evidence, Pure Hemp
 is not helped by its citation to two non-binding district
 court cases. See Straight Path IP Grp., Inc. v. Cisco Sys.,
 Inc., 2020 WL 2539002 (N.D. Cal. May 19, 2020); Andersen
 Mfg. v. Wyers Prods. Grp., 2019 WL 4007772 (D. Colo. Aug.
 23, 2019).
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 14                           UNITED CANNABIS CORPORATION v.
                                   PURE HEMP COLLECTIVE INC.

      [T]here are two senses in which an appeal can be
      held frivolous: First where an appeal is taken in a
      case in which “the judgment by the tribunal below
      was so plainly correct and the legal authority con-
      trary to appellant’s position so clear that there re-
      ally is no appealable issue,” the appeal is held to be
      “frivolous as filed.” Second, even in cases in which
      genuinely appealable issues may exist, so that the
      taking of an appeal is not frivolous, the appellant’s
      misconduct in arguing the appeal may be such as
      to justify holding the appeal to be “frivolous as ar-
      gued.”
 Romala Corp. v. United States, 927 F.2d 1219, 1222 (Fed.
 Cir. 1991) (internal citations omitted); see also Fed. R. App.
 P. 38.
     While Pure Hemp’s position is extremely weak, it is
 neither “frivolous as filed” nor “frivolous as argued.” Pure
 Hemp has prevailed on its appeal from the district court’s
 erroneous conclusion that Pure Hemp was not the prevail-
 ing party. While UCANN never contested this point, Pure
 Hemp’s victory on it persuades us that its appeal was not
 entirely frivolous when filed. As for how it has argued its
 appeal, there is much on which to fault Pure Hemp, includ-
 ing its contentions that the fact-laden issue of an attorney’s
 specific intent can be resolved on our record as undisputed
 and that, alternatively, we should sit as factfinders. Then
 there are Pure Hemp’s unsupported attacks on the integ-
 rity of UCANN’s prosecution counsel (as discussed above in
 connection with inequitable conduct) and on UCANN’s lit-
 igating counsel (whom Pure Hemp, unconvincingly, ac-
 cuses of misconduct on appeal). See, e.g., Appellant Reply
 Br. at 8 (“United Cannabis has misrepresented the con-
 tents of Whittle in its response brief.”), id. at 20 (“It ap-
 pears that United Cannabis has presented false testimony
 to this Court in support of its position.”), id. at 21 (“And
 now, this tribunal has been presented with additional evi-
 dence of litigation misconduct on the part of Cooley in its
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 PURE HEMP COLLECTIVE INC.

 representation of United Cannabis.”). We take this oppor-
 tunity to remind counsel of their obligation not to lightly
 launch attacks on one another’s integrity and most cer-
 tainly not to do so without a sound basis and solid evidence.
 Although we are not pleased with how Pure Hemp has ar-
 gued this appeal, we cannot say this appeal, as a whole,
 was “frivolous as argued.”
    Accordingly, having sua sponte raised the issue of
 whether this appeal was frivolous, we conclude it was not.
                              V
     While we have expressly discussed only the § 285 basis
 for Pure Hemp’s fee motion, our analysis applies equally to
 the other grounds on which Pure Hemp relied: § 1927 and
 the court’s inherent authority. Pure Hemp’s motion fails
 on those grounds as well. We have considered Pure Hemp’s
 remaining arguments and find them unpersuasive. For the
 foregoing reasons, we affirm.
                        AFFIRMED
                            COSTS
 Costs to Appellee.