IP Attorneys Increasingly Getting Their Own Patents And Suing
from the joining-in-the-party dept
A year ago, the story of patent attorney Scott Harris started making headlines. While being an IP attorney at a prestigious law firm, on the side, Harris had been getting his own patents, and then using a shell organization to sue companies for infringing. Some of the companies sued were represented by the firm that Harris worked for. Talk about a conflict of interest, right? Well, reporter Joe Mullin has discovered that these sorts of things are increasingly common. Various IP attorneys involved in patent hoarding lawsuits are seeing how lucrative it can be to just get a patent and sue -- and so they're eagerly jumping into the game themselves. Mullin dug up a bunch of cases of IP lawyers getting their own patents, and then suing over those patents, outside of their day job. Not surprisingly, many of the patents seem highly questionable (a patent on a car entertainment system that has a radio in front with DVD video in back.)However, the bigger question is the conflict of interest. First, with lawyers getting their own patents, there are always going to be questions about whether any of the patents are really the work of clients rather than the lawyer themselves. In fact, in the case of the car entertainment system above, one of the companies that's been sued over the patent points out that "two diagrams and several columns of text" appear to be directly plagiarized from another company's patents -- who just so happened to be a client of law firm the lawyer worked for. Oops.
The second potential conflict of interest is, as with Harris, about suing companies that are represented by the law firm the lawyer in question works for. In some cases, the lawyers dance around this. For example, in one of the cases Mullin discusses, the lawyer sued three of the four companies who own CareerBuilder. The lawyer did not sue the fourth owner, the Tribune Company. Why? While there's no official explanation, it's not hard to figure it out. The Tribune Company is a client of the law firm the guy works for. The other three owners are not. So, basically, the Tribune Company got lucky that the guy with the patent just happens to work for a law firm it uses. Perhaps the law firm sees this as a way of "locking in" clients: leave us, and one of our lawyers will sue you for patent infringement.
Either way, the article is a pretty depressing look at the state of patent law and patent lawyers these days.
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Filed Under: conflict of interest, ip lawyers, patents
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As for your asserting that the article represents a "depressing look at the state of....patent lawyers these days", please explain with reference to uncontroverted facts what it is that these very few persons have done that are illegal, immoral and/or unethical.
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Uh... so we're supposed to run this by one of the lawyers mentioned in the article for his questionable practices? As if he's not biased?
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Mullin did try to contact everyone in the story, and mostly got a big "no comment." If they're so proud of what they're doing, why would that happen?
Are you actually accusing Mullin of not contacting Donner? As the article made clear, he did contact him and Donner wouldn't respond.
So, yes, Mullin did exactly what you asked, and Donner hid in shame.
But that wasn't the point you were originally making. The reason you brought up Donner was to suggest that none of us can comment on the situation until Donner has given approval.
Yeah. Right.
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No...mine was merely to note that conclusions drawn and opinions expressed using an incomplete set of facts do little to accurately inform the public and engender informed discussion.
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Donner had every opportunity to respond. He chose not to. I think we can draw perfectly clear conclusions from that.
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The point should be obvious, though perhaps not to many of those who make their money as patent attorneys (Mr. Kinsella below suggests that there are some who see it however).
As for your asserting that the article represents a "depressing look at the state of....patent lawyers these days", please explain with reference to uncontroverted facts what it is that these very few persons have done that are illegal, immoral and/or unethical.
Again, if you cannot see what is problematic with what is happening, I would suggest that says quite a lot about your moral compass. The issues are outlined already in both the post and the article. I've debated with you in the past questions of conflict of interest, and you have shown that you believe in a much lower bar. Fair enough.
Others would likely disagree with you.
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One Patent Lawyer Agrees With you
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F*ck you
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IANAL
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Re: IANAL
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Cue rant
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Conflict of Interest
Apparently this approach is not shared in other areas of the business world.
Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conflict_of_interest
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big shocker
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The problem with those who are noted in the article is that the devil is in the details, and upon close examination most of the objections about unseemly conduct do not stand up to an inquiry of the facts. The "perception" makes for good headlines, but there is seldom a follow up by the media whenever "perception" is proven to be inaccurate.
These is nothing fundamentally wrong with an attorney also being an "inventor" (chester Carlson is one example) as long as their activities do not violate the rules of professional conduct governing the practice of law before state and federal authorities. Conflict of interest is a matter that is taken quite seriously, and it is a foolish attorney who tries to cut corners guided by self-interest.
In view of the above, and for other good reasons too numerous to mention, this is why I asked Mr. Masnick for facts supporting his broad brushstrokes concerning this issue. It is easy matter to proffer broad generalizations, but quite another matter to articulate them with specificity that is factually based.
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Maybe we should forget about prosecuting criminals, too, because after all, they're just a small percentage of the population.
No wonder people (you know, those of us with morals and ethics) hate lawyers.
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Reminds me of watching Republicans
This usually happens when greed and contempt for the public combine as the result of much undeserved success. The thinking of “these people are so stupid, we can get away with anything” just seems to naturally drift into the consciousness of people in these situations and usually leads to their own self-collapse.
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Article on Patent Lawyers
My point is that there are reputable patent attorneys, and much patent law is excellent. I personally am about as reputable an attorney as you can find, and I specialize in small inventors because I think it is the thing to do (at MUCH less money than I would make in other areas of patent law!).
I will say, anyone who takes a few isolated instances, and morphs them into a general indictment, is NOT reputable!
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I never stated, or even implied, otherwise.
I was not damning ALL patent attorneys.
I was merely damning the state of the patent system that made it so that *more* patent attorneys were doing this.
And, I find it difficult to believe that you actually think Joe Mullin was a bad journalist. He dug up all sorts of interesting info, and quoted multiple folks noting that this was a growing trend.
Neither of us said that it was common -- just growing. But the reasons that it's growing are why I noted that the patent system is in sad shape, in that it encourages this type of behavior.
If you are such a great lawyer, I would think you would understand the difference between what I actually said, and what you claimed I said.
I think you owe both me and Joe an apology.
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Lawyers?
No further comment required.
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The above is taken from the linked article. Personally, I do not believe it contains sufficient information from which I can reasonably draw any definite conclusions.
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I actually spoke with Joe Mullin about it. So, yes, I can draw a definite conclusion.
In the meantime, could you explain why you think no one should be allowed to comment on it without getting his official blessing first? Seems odd.
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I see nothing odd about believing that the accuracy of relevant facts be independently verified before publishing an article. Otherwise, an article turns into little more than a gossip column.
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Thus all any guilty party need do is refuse to comment, and suddenly, under MLS's logic, no article can be published.
Brilliant.
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Small wonder Thomas Jefferson generally eschewed reading newspapers and felt better informed because of it.
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That would be much appreciated.
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