FastShip’s $6 Million Fee Award in Navy Patent Fight Nixed (1)

The U.S. Navy persuaded the Federal Circuit to overturn a $6.2 million attorneys’ fee award in a patent infringement suit over combat ship design.

The U.S. Court of Federal Claims awarded fees to FastShip LLC two years after finding the Navy wrongly used the company’s patent information to design a class of near-shore combat ships while sidelining it from the design process.

That court improperly considered the government’s pre-litigation conduct in its fee analysis, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit said in a precedential opinion.

The Federal Circuit cited its recent holding in Hitkansut LLC v. ...