Tuesday: AIPLA Webcast on Spotting Conflicts in Patent Practice

Ethics

I'll be giving a talk — get your ethics CLE! — to select live sites from Atlanta.  You can sign up here.

"A simultaneous in-person and a live video conference luncheon/ breakfast Ethics CLE originating from Atlanta with remote sites in Chicago, Denver, Detroit, Irvine, New York, Palo Alto, Portland, San Diego, San Francisco, and Winston Salem."

Speaker:  Professor David Hricik, Mercer Law School
 
Spotting conflicts of interest in patent practice is not easy.  Checking the names of opposing parties in litigation is only the beginning.   For example, a lawyer who successfully represents a patentee in an infringement suit may cause a client to owe indemnity to the defendant.  Further, even arguing claim construction has been held to be adverse to a client who is not a party to that patent suit.  Opinion work and prosecution create even thornier issues.  To help spot conflicts of interest, Professor Hricik will explain how adversity can arise even without suing a client, and then apply those lessons to opinion work and patent prosecution.

About David

Professor of Law, Mercer University School of Law. Formerly Of Counsel, Taylor English Duma, LLP and in 2012-13, judicial clerk to Chief Judge Rader.

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4 thoughts on “Tuesday: AIPLA Webcast on Spotting Conflicts in Patent Practice”

  1. 4

    There’s a case, couldn’t find it now, where Company A got a non-infringement opinion from Firm A. Then it sold assets, including the non-infringing equipment, to Company B. Then Firm A was hired by the patentee to sue Company B…

  2. 3

    Thanks – you hit on several of the drivers that I was considering: the imputed conflicts when a lawyer changes firms and brings his book of business to a different firm and their history, the clients’ dynamics in that they are obtaining new IP (either or both organically and externally), and the fact that clients’ products change and may become disassociated with their IP.

    I am not as concerned with opinion work, as that can be said to be static and only binding for the conditions that exist at a moment in time, although care must be taken in the first instance to recognize the sum totality that is reflected for that moment.

  3. 2

    I don’t emphasize that separately in this talk, but you are right. Claims and business models change, and companies buy companies, lawyers transfer firms, and…

  4. 1

    Do you touch on the dynamic nature of conflict checking?

    I have seen a “take a look at it once – it’s clear – and forget about it” approach really burn some people.

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