On March 2, Latham & Watkins and Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunner convinced a court to award heavy sanctions, including more than $339,000 in costs, to their clients on the grounds that their adversary had engaged in vexatious litigation and misconduct. Northern District of California Judge Claudia Wilken awarded the attorneys fees and costs to Monolithic Power Systems and ASUSTeK Computer Inc., in their long-running patent dispute with O2 Micro International. Monolithic (represented by Latham) and ASUSTeK (represented by Finnegan, Henderson) had asked for over $13 million in attorneys fees in this motion. Wilken deferred her decision on the fees, ordering the parties to try to reach a compromise. O2 Micro is represented by Howrey.

Wilken criticized O2′s strategy of suing Monolithic’s customers (one of whom was ASUSTeK) for infringing its patents, and then dismissing the suits and granting Monolithic and its customers broad covenants not to sue, but only after substantial litigation had taken place. Wilken found that the strategy, which also allowed O2 to avoid defending the validity of its patents, wasted the resources of the parties and the court. Additionally, Wilken held that O2 had committed litigation misconduct by filing a series of baseless motions to obscure a witness’s false testimony about the date of his invention.

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