Brayton Purcell LLP v. Recordon & Recordon

ORDER GRANTING IN PART AND DENYING IN PART PLAINTIFF’S MOTION FOR ATTORNEY’S FEES AND COSTS

I. INTRODUCTION

Plaintiff Brayton Purcell LLP and Defendant Recordon & Recordon (“Recor- don”) are law firms. Each has a website. On November 24, 2004, Brayton Purcell filed suit against Recordon asserting claims for copyright infringement, unfair competition (federal and state law), false advertising (state law), and common law misappropriation based on Recordon’s alleged copying of Brayton Purcell’s website on elder abuse.

After the Court denied a motion to dismiss filed by Recordon, Recordon answered the complaint and filed a cross-complaint against Apptomix, Inc. and Jonathan Lee (collectively, “Apptomix Defendants”). According to the cross-complaint, Recordon hired Apptomix to design a web page; Apptomix created for Recordon a web page on elder abuse; Recordon did not provide any input into the development of the elder abuse web page; and an Appt-omix employee represented that the elder abuse web page was developed by way of independent research and work product (ie., not copying). Subsequently, Brayton Purcell filed, with the agreement of Recor-don, an amended complaint, adding…