The largest publicly traded patent-holding company will have to pay online retailer Newegg $15,000 after bringing a frivolous appeal.

The order brings to a conclusion what was a once-classic example of sprawling "patent troll" litigation. In 2010, AdjustaCam LLC, a subsidiary of Acacia Research Corp., filed suit (PDF) in Eastern Texas against dozens of companies, saying that they infringed US Patent No. 5,855,343, which describes a type of movable camera clip. The list of defendants included camera makers like Gear Head and Creative Labs, as well as retailers like Amazon, Newegg, K-Mart, Overstock.com, and Wal-Mart.

While many defendants settled with AdjustaCam, Newegg was headed toward a jury trial. When the district court considered the claims of AdjustaCam's patent, though, it didn't go well for the patent-holding company, which received an unfavorable claim construction order. With a jury trial upcoming in 2013, AdjustaCam simply dropped its case against Newegg and granted a "covenant not to sue." (AdjustaCam is hardly the first "patent troll" to use this strategy.)

More remarkable, even though the Texas district court judge never reached a decision on the merits, AdjustaCam went ahead and appealed anyhow. The patent-holding company filed a brief that conveniently elided the issue of how the case turned out.

"AdjustaCam carefully tried to conceal the fact that the final judgment was irrelevant to its appeal," wrote (PDF) attorney Daniel Brean. "In the entirety of AdjustaCam’s opening brief, it never mentions that the case concluded when it dismissed Newegg and provided Newegg with a covenant not to sue... AdjustaCam’s effort to conceal the absence of a continuing case or controversy suggests that the frivolous nature of the appeal was known to AdjustaCam and its counsel when the appeal was filed."

Newegg argued that under those circumstances, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, which hears all patent appeals, didn't have jurisdiction over the case at all.

The panel of three Federal Circuit judges agreed with Newegg. Yesterday, the judges awarded (PDF) the company $15,000 in legal fees, saying the appeal never should have happened.

"Under basic principles of jurisdiction, this court was plainly precluded from hearing AdjustaCam’s appeal due to the absence of a final judgment on claim construction," wrote US Circuit Judge Todd Hughes for a unanimous panel. "Accordingly, we find AdjustaCam’s appeal frivolous as filed."

Since the case ended in 2013, the law firms involved in Newegg's case billed it nearly $200,000 on expenses, according to an affidavit. Brean estimated that 15 percent of that sum was used to defend against the AdjustaCam appeal, or close to $30,000. The Federal Circuit award yesterday grants the company about half of that.

For Newegg's Chief Legal Officer Lee Cheng, who has long taken a hard line on seeking fees from patent trolls, the award was a victory but an incomplete one.

"It’s incredibly gratifying that the Federal Circuit has recognized just how egregious and abusive AdjustaCam’s behavior was at the appellate level," Cheng told Ars. "Justice for victims of patent abusers like AdjustaCam and its parent, Acacia, remains elusive. It's a glaring fact that judges in the Eastern District of Texas have not granted a single Section 285 fee motion to a defendant—not one—after the Supreme Court rationalized the standards for fee shifting under Section 285 in Octane Fitness."

Octane Fitness was a Supreme Court decision last year that made it easier for defendants to win fees in patent cases. Nationwide, the grant rate for fee motions in patent cases went up close to 50 percent in the 12 months following the decision.

AdjustaCam attorneys and Acacia Research representatives didn't respond to requests for comment about the fee decision.