Southern District of Texas Judge Lee H. Rosenthal has ruled that a case filed last August by VDPP LLC is exceptional, justifying a shift of attorney fees incurred by defendant Volkswagen in defending it. VDPP and its counsel Ramey LLP have been held jointly and severally liable for those shifted fees as both engaged in “repeated misconduct” that “underscores the need for meaningful deterrence”. Central to the outlined misconduct is VDPP’s request for relief, which sought “future damages and a permanent injunction on a patent that had expired a year before” and “past damages despite an inability to allege patent marking”. In the weeks before this July 11 order came down, VDPP filed new complaints in various districts, one against each of Advanced Technology Video, CostarHD, Digital Projection, Kaltec Electronics, Sceptre, Skyworth, and Snap One Holdings (SunBriteTV).