Family networking service Life360 won a patent trial earlier this year against a Florida company called Advanced Ground Information Systems (AGIS) that sued it for patent infringement. Now it has won a significant chunk of its legal fees for fighting the case.

Yesterday, US District Judge Donald Middlebrooks ordered AGIS to pay Life360 the sum of $684,190.25. That amount represents the legal fees paid from November 21, 2014, when Middlebrooks issued a claim construction order, through the end of the trial on March 13, 2015.

"This was an exceptionally weak case, especially with respect to the asserted method claims, which were the only claims remaining after claim construction," wrote Middlebrooks in his fee order (PDF). "Every claim could only be performed by multiple users, even though infringement requires that "a single party performed each and every step of the claim." He continued:

These Parties never competed, never lost business to each other, indeed had never heard of each other before AGIS lawyers sent a demand letter to Life360, a startup company that, while showing promise, had never made a profit. The letter demanded that Life360 either negotiate a royalty or shut down its service... While I stop short of a finding of bad faith, continued assertion of these claims seemed designed to extract settlement not based upon the merits of the claim but on the high cost of litigation.

Life360 offers a free app that makes money by charging a $5 monthly fee for premium features. AGIS competes for government contracts, and at the time of trial, it had not seen success in the consumer market. At trial, an AGIS company official said he would probably give the company a grade of "F" for financial performance.

The fee award is a significant chunk of Life360's legal fees, which totaled slightly over $1 million, according to spreadsheets submitted by Life360 during the fee fight. The company also incurred about $275,000 in expert witness fees, which will not be reimbursed.

"Judge Middlebrooks' decision confirms what we knew all along—this case was nothing more than a meritless shakedown attempt that fortunately backfired for AGIS and their attorneys at Kenyon in a big way," Life360 CEO Chris Hulls told Ars. "The tide is turning against trolls, and we hope this win emboldens others in the tech ecosystem to stand up to these bullies."

AGIS has appealed Middlebrooks' earlier ruling that some of its patent claims are invalid to the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, with arguments likely early next year, and AGIS founder Cap Beyer has said the company will appeal the fee award as well. Beyer told Ars that he disagrees with the fee ruling and that Middlebrooks is wrong that the claims require multiple users.

"A single user can 'provide' software to different phones by sending a link and can 'store' numbers in different phones by sending them data," Beyer said. "The judge did not answer any of our arguments as to why it was reasonable to argue that a single user infringes each step of the claims. The fact that the jury disagreed with us does not make this case 'exceptional' or justify a punitive award of fees."

Heated litigation

In 2014, Hulls responded to AGIS' initial licensing letter with a missive that began, "Dear Piece of Shit." That provocative response was brought up during trial, but it didn't help the plaintiff. After about five hours of deliberation, a jury in Palm Beach County, Florida, ruled that Life360 didn't infringe the patents.

Hulls also continued to speak publicly about his fight during the litigation, creating a website called "Stop AGIS." He described his quest to create "a hostile environment in which troll-like behavior is no longer a financially viable way to operate." While AGIS, which had contracts in the recent past and had only sued Life360, "may not be the exact definition of a troll," its behavior was "eerily similar," Hulls maintained.

In Hulls' view, AGIS had claimed a patent on an obvious idea. AGIS claimed its patents were infringed by very basic functions of the Life360 app, such as its ability to "allow a user to touch a family member's symbol on a map and initiate a rapid voice communication or text message."

"We're getting sued for having markers on a map showing where people are and allowing communication between them," Hulls told a reporter at one point, adding that he could "show them a Star Trek episode from the 1960s" that had a similar system.

The CEO's public statements around his patent fight came up again during the post-trial battle over fees, with AGIS lawyers claiming Hulls was seeking to "harass and intimidate AGIS and its witnesses."

"If anyone should be charged with bad faith and vexatious litigation conduct it is Life360, not AGIS," wrote AGIS lawyers, seeking to prevent the fee award they were hit with yesterday. "Since the outset of this case, Life360 has sought to intimidate AGIS and the inventor, Mr. Beyer, by sabotaging their business and reputations in the press, disparaging AGIS as a 'troll,' and launching websites like 'stopagis.com' and 'malcombeyer.com.'"

Once more, Hulls' strident advocacy didn't seem to hurt his cause. Beyer, who hasn't sued anyone other than Life360, made clear today that he continues to object to the characterization of his company.

"As Life 360 well knows, AGIS is not a 'troll'," said Beyer. "I personally am the inventor of AGIS’s patents, and AGIS is a real company with real products and real sales. Mr. Hulls has stated that AGIS, Inc. is a failing firm, which it is not. If this fee award is allowed to stand after appeal, it will have a chilling effect on real inventors and startup companies that try to enforce their legitimate patent rights."