U.S. District Judge Beth Labson Freeman of the Northern District of California can read the writing on the wall.

The day after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit signaled during arguments that it doesn’t have a beef with Freeman’s claim construction rulings, the judge imposed a $4.8 million fee award on PersonalWeb Technologies LLC in its multidistrict litigation with Amazon.com Inc. and more than 80 Amazon customers.