One of the first questions a client often asks when hiring a lawyer to defend against, or to bring, an intellectual property infringement action is, “Can I recover my fees?” And the typical answer is, “It depends, but I wouldn’t count on it.”

However, the possibility of a court awarding attorneys’ fees should never be discounted. Fees are available in “exceptional” patent or trademark infringement cases, and they may be awarded at the court’s discretion in copyright actions. Attorneys should bear this in mind when preparing and implementing their litigation strategies, particularly in light of three important Supreme Court rulings in the last few years governing attorneys’ fees in intellectual property cases.

Read the article here.