Unitemized Invoice Sinks Claim for $419,000 in Costs

The court reduced the costs awarded to defendant by $419,105 for visual aids. "[B]ecause the invoices are not itemized, there is no record of which visual aids correspond to each invoice. . . . It is not possible for the Court to evaluate how much [defendant] spent on trial exhibits, how much it spent on other visual aids, and whether these amounts were reasonable. . . . The Court does not doubt that litigants may legitimately incur high costs producing necessary visual aids in a patent trial such as this, which required counsel to explain complex medical devices to the jury and the Court. The Court cannot award the requested costs here, however, because [defendant] has failed to provide the Court with sufficient information to evaluate the reasonableness of [defendant's] expenditures."

Boston Scientific Corporation et al. v. Johnson & Johnson et al.,
3-02-cv-00790 (CAND September 14, 2009, Order) (Illston, J.).