A federal judge's decision last week to up the attorney fees awarded to the defense in a patent infringement suit was a direct result of a pair of 2014 U.S. Supreme Court decisions loosening the standards for fee-shifting in patent cases. But the multimillion-dollar payout might be one of only a few in a short window before litigants tailor their approach in patent suits, intellectual property attorneys predicted.

The ruling Dec. 2 in Checkpoint Systems v. All-Tag Security, awarding an additional $1 million in attorney fees on top of the $6.5 million already awarded to the defendants, joins about 80 other fee requests addressed by courts across the country since the April 2014 decisions in Octane Fitness v. Icon Health & Fitness and Highmark v. Allcare Health Management System.

Before Octane and Highmark, fees could only be awarded to the winning party under Section 285 of the Patent Act if a district court either found litigation-related misconduct or determined the litigation was both “brought in subjective bad faith” and “objectively baseless.”