A federal judge has denied Washington State University’s request to recover $100,000 in attorney fees from an agricultural technology company involved in litigation over Cosmic Crisp apples.
Earlier this year, Chief U.S. District Judge Ricardo Martinez in Seattle rejected the Phytelligence company’s claims that WSU had violated a contract by blocking it from commercially propagating the new variety.
The judge ruled that Phytelligence’s contract allowed it to create new Cosmic Crisp trees but didn’t guarantee that it could commercialize them without separate permission from WSU.
The university also countersued Phytelligence, which was started by one of its horticulture professors, arguing the company delivered at least 135,000 apple trees to a farm without authorization.
Instead of continuing to pursue compensation for damages, WSU agreed to an injunction under which Phytelligence couldn’t use the “Cosmic Crisp” trademark without obtaining a license, though it could retain the plants from its original agreement.
WSU then sought more than $100,000 from Phytelligence for the 411 hours that its attorney had spent arguing the trademark and patent infringement claims.
The university argued that compensation was justified because it was clearly the “prevailing party” in the dispute, since it had won an injunction.
Phytelligence’s patent and trademark violations were “willful” because it had knowingly sold Cosmic Crisp-branded apple trees developed by the university without permission, according to WSU.
“Phytelligence knew it was not authorized to engage in this conduct,” the university argued.
However, the judge has ruled that WSU hasn’t proven it’s the prevailing party because the injunction doesn’t impose more restrictions on Phytelligence than were already required by law.
The university also doesn’t qualify for attorney fees because the case isn’t considered “exceptional” under case law, which would require WSU’s legal position to have unusually “substantive strength” or for Phytelligence to have litigated in an “unreasonable manner,” Martinez said.
