Fired Trademark Attorney And Husband Arrested For Stabbing Law Firm Managing Partner

Leave a Comment / Moral turpitide / By

Job counselors always seem to be full of advice for people who are fired from their jobs.  “Go out gracefully” and “don’t burn bridges” are common suggestions for the newly-unemployed. Recently-fired intellectual property attorney Alecia Schmuhl might have benefitted from such words of wisdom.  Instead, she sits in a jail cell charged with malicious wounding and abduction while her victims–the managing […]

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Can IP Litigation Counsel Be Jointly Liable Or Ethically Disciplined For Their Clients’ Intentional Destruction Of Evidence?

Leave a Comment / ITC Sanctions / By

On October 29, 2014, ALJ Thomas B. Pender issued an order in Certain Opaque Polymers (Inv. No. 337-TA-883) granting a default judgment of trade secret misappropriation as a sanction for the respondent’s spoliation of electronic evidence and imposing sanctions of $1.9 million against the respondent and its counsel.  The joint liability determination raises troubling legal issues regarding the propriety

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CAFC Disciplines Patent Litigator Who Forwarded Former Chief Judge’s “BFF” Email To Clients

1 Comment / ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct, Discipline, Federal Circuit Ethics Decisions / By

On November 5, 2014, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued an order publicly reprimanding IP litigator Edward R. Reines.  See In re Edward R. Reines, 14-MA004 (Fed. Cir. Nov. 5, 2014) (en banc).  The discipline is the latest chapter in an unusual saga surrounding an email to Reines from former Chief Circuit Court Judge

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After the Protostorm – Court Restricts Intellectual Property Firm’s Spending Following $8 Million Malpractice Judgment

1 Comment / Malpractice, Patent Malpractice / By

In the wake of a multi-million patent malpractice verdict against Antonelli Terry Stout & Kraus LLP, a federal judge has imposed “temporary” financial restrictions on the Virginia-based IP firm. Protostorm LLC et al. v. Antonelli Terry Stout & Kraus LLP, No. 1:08-cv-00931 (E.D.N.Y.) As discussed in our October 13, 2014 post, Protostorm LLC engaged the Antonelli firm

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After Winning Decade-Long Battle To Fix One-Day Late Filing Error, Pharma Company Sues Former IP Counsel For Patent Malpractice

2 Comments / Malpractice, Patent Malpractice / By

What a difference a day made Twenty-four little hours Brought the sun and the flowers Where there used to be rain – Dinah Washington In the world of pharmaceutical patents, every day of exclusive rights can translate into millions of dollars in additional revenue. Global biopharmaceutical company The Medicines Company (MDCO) knows this all too

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A Modern Day Bonnie and Clyde—Former IP General Counsel and His Spouse Accused Of Racketeering, Theft In Alleged $5 Million Patent Search Billing Scheme

2 Comments / Civil RICO, Civil Theft, District Court Litigation, Moral turpitide / By

Mary and Jason Throne are not really Bonnie and Clyde. According to a recent lawsuit, however, Jason Throne, who worked for 20 years as a senior patent counsel for Hunter Douglas, and his wife Mary, carried out a fifteen-year fraudulent patent search billing scheme that might have impressed the notorious bank-robbing duo of days yonder. And

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After Confessing To Ethics Violation, Patent Attorney Disbarred For Commingling And Converting Client Funds

Leave a Comment / Client Funds, Communications, PTO Ethics Decisions / By

“If you tell the truth you don’t have to remember anything.” – Mark Twain Give patent attorney Stephen Robinson at least a little credit – he was honest about being dishonest. The fact he self-reported his ethical violations to the Kansas Bar was not enough to save his state law license.  In re Stephen R. Robinson, No. 107,311 (Kan. Sup. Ct.). Nor

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Former Siemens Patent Attorney Indicted In $2.4 Million Fraudulent Billing Scheme

Leave a Comment / Client Funds, Patent Criminal / By

“The point is, ladies and gentleman, that greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right, greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit.” — Gorden Gekko, Wall Street. Maybe “greed works” for some.  For Alexander James Burke, however, greed may end up being his downfall. On October 16, 2014, Burke,

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