Malpractice

Attorneys’ Ethical Duties When Representing Clients With Diminished Capacity

These days, it’s good to be a trusts and estates lawyer. While the rest of legal field is scrambling to figure out how to survive the next few weeks and months with little new business coming in and much existing business on hold, attorneys who represent the elderly and infirm report a boom in business. […]

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Quoted in Law360: “$32M Dentons Verdict Could Put Vereins In The Crosshairs”

On February 25, 2020, Michael E. McCabe, Jr. was quoted in Law360 (including the lead story in IP360 and Legal Ethics360), in an article entitled “$32M Dentons Verdict Could Put Vereins in the Crosshairs“ by Aebra Coe. The Law360 article addresses the ethical risks of the Swiss verein structure as it relates to conflicts of

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Avoiding USPTO Discipline: Five Recommendations for IP Practitioners

The USPTO’s Office of Enrollment and Discipline (OED) exists, in large part, to ensure that patent and trademark practitioner are practicing ethically and in accordance with the Office’s Rules of Professional Conduct.  The OED’s staff includes a dozen attorneys, many of whom have practical experience in the area of IP law.  Whether you have been

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Patent Prosecution Malpractice: Minimizing the Risk of Claims

Malpractice in patent prosecution can be an expensive (very expensive) and time-consuming proposition. Defense costs alone can run well into the seven figures. No patent prosecutor or law firm wants to face that kind of exposure. On February 21, 2019, I will be presenting a 90-minute CLE webinar hosted by Strafford on best practices for

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Untying The IP Ethics Knot

Do you worry about ethics in your IP practice?  If not, you should.  There is way too much going on out there, and not knowing what is happening can leave you exposed to ethics and malpractice risk. If you can spare 90 minutes, tune in tomorrow from 1:00-2:30 pm EST for the ABA-IPL Landslide Webinar Series,

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Alston & Bird Prevails In $10 Million Patent Litigation Malpractice Suit

On January 26, 2017, a New York state appeals court panel affirmed a lower court’s dismissal of a $10 million malpractice complaint filed against Alston & Bird LLP.  The court held that the complaint filed by Alston’s former client, high-tech fabric maker Brookwood Cos., Inc., failed to state a plausible claim that Brookwood would have

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Appeals Court Rejects Belated Alice Defense, Affirms $8 Million Patent Malpractice Award

The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit rejected yesterday a now defunct Virginia IP firm’s attempt to rely on 35 U.S.C. § 101 and the Supreme Court’s Alice decision as a defense to an $8 million damages award arising from the firm’s negligence in handling a client’s patent application. Protostorm, LLC v.

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Mass. Sup. Ct. Rules In Favor Of Finnegan, Henderson In Subject Matter Conflicts Malpractice Case

On December 23, 2015, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court issued an opinion dismissing a malpractice complaint filed against an IP law firm for failure to state a claim.  See Maling v. Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunner, LLP.  A copy of the Massachusetts SJC’s opinion is here.  For our previous discussions about the facts and procedural

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