I’m updating my book on ethical issues in patent litigation, and found one of those “no way” cases.
Jones Day lawyer is representing a defendant in patent litigation. The plaintiff designates its expert. Lawyer gets on the Internet and, through email sent through that expert’s company’s web page, asks him some general questions by email, through a fake gmail address, not his Jones Day address.
For various reasons, the district court denies the motion for disqualification and sanctions. One of the reasons was that the information provided was the same sort of information the expert would have provided to any customer contacting him.
Interesting one. It’s IPatt Group, Inc. v. Scotts Miracle-Gro Co., 2013 WL 3043677 (D. Nev. June 17, 2013).