Patent Law

The Wages of Bad Faith Patent Litigation -- The Lawyers are Liable

By Les Weinstein, Michael Young, John Leo Wagner, Eric van Ginkel, and Victoria Pynchon

Some cases just need to be tried.  See Law Firms Held Liable for Fees in 'Tissue of Lies' Patent Suit at Law.com.  Excerpt below:

A federal judge has ordered a patent holder and his lawyers to pay attorney fees for bringing an infringement suit based on "nothing more than a tissue of lies."

Irving Bauer had sued Romag Fasteners Inc., a manufacturer of magnetic snap closures for handbags, for infringing a 1996 patent on a new type of closure he claimed to have invented.

But Southern District of New York Judge Paul A. Crotty invalidated Bauer's patent last week, finding that it had been issued through iniquitous conduct. Bauer's testimony about his inventorship "bore clear indicia of fabrication," the judge said, adding that he was "convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt" that Bauer was no inventor. . . . . 

The judge held New York law firm Abelman, Frayne & Schwab, which initially represented Bauer in his suit against Romag, jointly and severally liable for Romag's attorney fees after Feb. 11, 2006. That was the earliest date, the judge said, Abelman Frayne should have realized expert testimony the firm planned to use to support Bauer's claim had been contradicted by testing.

"By persisting with this claim to trial, Abelman counsel played a central role in so unreasonably and unnecessarily multiplying the proceedings so as to give rise to bad faith litigation," the judge said.

Read the full article here.

And hey!  Be careful out there!

Full post as published by IP ADR Blog on July 23, 2008 (boomark / email).