PATENT LAW FIRM PAYS CLIENT $1,000,000 TO SETTLE CLAIM OF PROFESSIONAL NEGLIGENCE |
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On December 10, 2000 , one of the partners of Oldham & Oldham, under pressure from a client for a status report, ˇ°discoveredˇ± an accumulation fig-1 of patent files in a staff attorney's office closet. He may have been tipped off by the attorney's secretary. See ˇ°mea culpa letterˇ± (1) sent to client and interrogatory (2). The attorney was suspended the next day and fired a few days later. |
| The attorney had been with Oldham& Oldham since 1995 and thus his behavior could have affected many other clients who may be unaware of the internal problems, see Client List (3). There was no indication of an internal review procedure that would have caught this problem. | |
| In 2001 the client sued Oldham & Oldham and Hahn, Loeser and Parks for professional negligence. The client later stated that his product files were miss-handled by: | |
| Failure to convert a provisional patent Rejection of poorly written applications Poor searches Improper filings Missed deadlines and filing |
| The client paid Oldham & Oldham and Hahn Loeser and Park, a total of $69,340 for work done on these products. |
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The case was settled for $1,000,000.00 by Westport Insurance, who was represented by Ulmer & Berne. |
| Oldham & Oldham admitted that the problems go back to early 1999 but the depth of the problem was not revealed in the trial records and may go back even earlier. |
| In 2001, Oldham & Oldham ˇ°affiliatedˇ± with Hahn, Loeser and Parks. Payments of $1,750,000 (4) were made to the Oldham & Oldham partners who eventually became full partners in Hahn Loeser and Parks and took most of Oldham & Oldham's clients with them. |
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In response to another suit against Oldham & Oldham and Hahn Loeser and Parks for Malpractice,(5) Hahn Loeser and Parks successfully Fg-3 claimed that they were only affiliated with Oldham&Oldham and no merger took place. However,Hahn, Loeser and Parks did pay 50% of the tail insurance to cover future lawsuits against Oldham & Oldham. |
Hahn, Loeser and Parks worked on and received payments for patent files that may have been affected by these internal problems. Whether the files were corrected or the other clients were ever notified of the internal problems is unknown. Clients assume that their submissions will be handled by their Patent Law firm in a professional and diligent manner. Unfortunately, most clients lack the ability to check and review the patent applications, the quality of the search and the application progress. There is no evidence that Oldham & Oldham or Hahn Loeser and Parks reviewed and corrected any of the files of the discharged attorney and the clients whose names appear in the ˇ°client listˇ±. (3) |
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Ask your patent attorneys how your files are handled. Is there a review and check procedure in place? One would assume that a supervising attorney would regularly review the status of open files, review the files and issue status reports. Don't make that assumption.
References
(1) Mea Culpa letter, sent to client by Oldham & Oldham: Page 1; Page 2; Page 3
(2) Interrogatory of an Oldham & Oldham partner.
(3) Client List. How many of these who were affected by the internal problems is not known but the reference to ˇ°numerous filesˇ± (1) in the mea culpa document would lead to the conclusion that there were others who were similarly affected.
(4) Contract between Oldham & Oldham and Hahn Loeser and Parks
