Posts on ‘November 25th, 2009’

The Federal Circuit has upheld a lower court ruling that a muscle magazine ad about a bodybuilding supplement rendered the underlying patent obvious and invalid. The decision upheld an Eastern District of Texas ruling that seven of the patent’s claims were invalid because the invention “was disclosed in a printed publication before the critical date.” The appeals court found that a person with ordinary skill in the art would be able to determine the amounts of the known ingredients listed in the ad to practice the invention.

Craig Thorner is an inventive whiz when it comes to video game gizmos, but he hasn’t had much luck with lawyers. In May, he sued a top New Jersey intellectual property boutique alleging a breach of duty to him in negotiations over licensing of game-control technology. The suit also claims that a Sony Corp. subsidiary infringed Thorner’s patents. But the lawyer Thorner hired to bring the suit, Glen Diehl, is not only a former lawyer from that boutique, but worked on Sony matters for the firm.

Sometimes an attorney’s bad advice is just bad advice, not shrewd legal strategizing gone awry. That’s what California’s 6th District Court of Appeal concluded Tuesday when it reversed a trial court judgment and set aside defaults issued against two foreign microchip marketers. The judges rejected the idea that the default was a strategic move by the defendant, or its Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld attorney, Yitai Hu.

Paul Bergrin, a New Jersey criminal defense lawyer accused of being at the center of a criminal enterprise, pleaded not guilty in federal court Monday to a raft of charges that include murder and drug trafficking. The superseding indictment almost tripled to 39 the original 14 counts lodged against the former federal prosecutor. On top of earlier charges that he engaged in prostitution and mortgage fraud, and arranged the murder of a witness, Bergrin stands charged with interstate travel in aid of bribery and trafficking.

Debt collectors who use unfair or deceptive tactics during collection litigation cannot rely on the First Amendment’s petition clause as a defense, ruled the Alaska Supreme Court recently in the first appellate decision on the issue. In an increasing number of consumer cases, debt collection agencies have been arguing that their litigation tactics are immunized from suits under state and federal unfair trade practices laws because those suits burden their constitutional right to petition the courts.

The days of courthouse law libraries may be numbered. Beyond the big-picture issue of online legal research displacing books, the Connecticut Judicial Branch revealed plans to close six of the state’s 16 law libraries by next year, though the locations have not been revealed publicly.

A federal appeals court ruled 2-1 on Monday that rules that bar legal aid organizations financed by the Legal Services Corp. from participating in class actions and collecting attorney fees do not violate their First Amendment rights. In a dissent, Judge Harry Pregerson wrote that the LSC restrictions were unreasonable because they distorted a lawyer’s ability to take cases in line with the LSC’s mission.

The creditors committee in the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy fired a shot Tuesday in a dispute over whether Barclays received an improper “windfall” in its purchase of Lehman’s North American assets and liabilities last September. The dispute has resulted in several motions for discovery and at least three suits. Now, the creditors committee has filed a motion under the terms of the Hague Convention, in the hopes that a U.K. court will require two huge U.K.-based entities to turn over documents related to the Barclays deal.

Wyeth and its new parent Pfizer are probably wishing they had more to be thankful for this week, after being hit with jury awards totaling more than $100 million over hormone drugs. But what started out as a tough week for Big Pharma got a little better late Monday, when Manhattan federal Judge John Keenan dismissed the second of three bellwether cases facing Merck over its osteoporosis drug Fosamax just weeks before it was set for trial.