Posts on ‘November 19th, 2008’

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office reported that patent processing increased by 14 percent in fiscal year 2008 compared with the prior year, outstripping the 5.7 percent increase in patent filings during the same time span. The increase continues a pattern established several years ago, according to the report. Despite the high volume, the PTO says the agency met 100 percent of its government performance and results act goals for the first time.

Greenberg Traurig is the latest large firm to trim its associate ranks. The firm laid off three full-time associates from its real estate practice in New York on Friday. Two additional part-time associates were laid off on Monday, according to a person in the firm who declined to be named. The firm said in its statement that it has grown in recent years, added offices in the United States and Asia, is currently looking to hire laterals and practice groups and will continue to grow.

A class of Carnival Cruise Lines passengers whose voyage to celebrate the millennium was interrupted by equipment failure has settled a lawsuit against the company with a unique result — more than $5 million worth of free trips. Under the settlement, about 2,460 passengers will receive a free one-week cruise. Class attorney David Mishael and D. Michael Campbell, who filed the original suit, were awarded attorney fees of $1.75 million, bringing the total settlement value to almost $7.5 million.

Lawyers for former CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson plan to petition the Supreme Court to review a lawsuit against Vice President Dick Cheney and I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, among others, after the D.C. Circuit this week rejected a rehearing en banc. The executive director of a Washington, D.C., watchdog group that participated in representing Plame and her husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson, said in a statement: “This is an issue worth fighting over and we will not give up.”