Earlier this year, RPX provided a detailed walk-through of a Special Master’s report and recommendation regarding attorney fees that defendants Apple and Cisco sought in litigation brought by Straight Path IP Group, Inc. The Special Master contended with a lack of caselaw regarding how alternative fee arrangements should be handled in the exceptional case context, ultimately recommending that $2.3M in fees should be awarded to Apple and that a reduced $1.9M should be awarded to Cisco: “This report concludes that such alternative fee arrangements, whether flat fee or otherwise, may be compensable under Section 285, but that prevailing parties must be required to satisfy appropriate reasonableness standards to ensure fairness and to protect against potential abuse”. District Judge William H. Alsup has now adopted those recommendations, bringing the “protracted fee dispute—‘one of the least socially productive types of litigation imaginable’”—to an end.