Lawyers Fined $72.6 Million For Screwing Up Patent Application, Not Letting Company Sue For Enough Cash
from the so-that's-what-it's-come-to dept
Rob Hyndman points us to the news that a law firm has been hit with a $72.6 million judgment for legal malpractice, after a company who had hired the law firm to handle its patent applications claimed that the law firm screwed up the applications, making it that much harder for the company to shake down other companies for cash. The inventors, in this case, claim to have come up with a "man down" alert system (for firefighters and the like), and had this law firm patent it for them. Of course, similar technology appeared on the market soon after, and so these guys sued and were "only" able to collect $9 million -- which they deemed to be way too little. So they sued the law firm... and won. So, apparently, these days you don't even need to have a good patent to make money. You can just blame your law firm for screwing up your patent if you weren't able to shake down enough other companies.Filed Under: malpractice, patents
