San Diego Comic-Con’s $4 Million Attorney Fees Affirmed, Trimmed

The Ninth Circuit upheld most of a nearly $4 million attorneys’ fees award to the San Diego Comic Convention against a Salt Lake City convention organizer that infringed its “Comic-Con” trademarks, in an unpublished Monday decision.

The appeals court rejected Dan Farr Productions’ argument that the case wasn’t exceptional, agreeing with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California’s award based on the company’s “failure to comply with court rules, persistent desire to re-litigate issues already decided, advocacy that veered into ‘gamesmanship,’ and unreasonable responses to the litigation.”

A jury found Farr’s Salt Lake Comic Con infringed SDCC’s ...