imageRisky business

Patent infringement cases involve an immense amount of risk. Why?

Answers by people who know — especially plaintiffs-side attorneys who work on a contingent-fee basis — will cluster around three facts of life in patent disputes:

  1. high stakes,
  2. huge costs, and
  3. the propensity of the Federal Circuit to undo trial court rulings.

This post deals with the hazards awaiting you behind door number three. Continue Reading Federal Circuit Doubles Down on De Novo Review

Boycott SignLeegin as wrecking ball?

Since the Supreme Court struck down an almost century-old rule of per se antitrust liability in Leegin Creative Leather Prods., Inc. v. PSKS, Inc., 551 U.S. 877 (2007),* defense lawyers have tried to turn a single sentence from Leegin into a per-se category killer.

The effort presents high stakes, principally because per se cases have several advantages over their rule-of-reason cousins. The former are simpler, cost millions of dollars less to work up and try, and have greater odds of success with a judge or jury. The per se rule:

  • does not require an economist to opine about the relevant product and geographic markets;
  • obviates the need to prove that the defendants had market (or monopoly) power or that their conduct was anticompetitive;
  • simplifies proof of damages; and
  • precludes defendants from claiming, and presenting evidence, that their agreement enhanced competition.

You would expect a kindly hearing from the Fifth Circuit — a court that, despite President Obama’s six years of judicial appointments, still counts twice as many Republican (10) as Democratic (5)  appointees in active service. But would the court drink the Kool-Aid?

The court answered on November 25. The panel gave a resounding no.

Continue Reading The Future of Per Se Antitrust Liability

Handshake with TearLast Thursday, the Association for Corporate Growth hosted a talk in Dallas about deals that result in a lawsuit or arbitration. Several dozen deal-makers, mergers and acquisitions lawyers, and consultants attended. The Honorable Jeff Kaplan of JAMS, Elizabeth Brandon of Vinson & Elkins, and I gave the talk. Ladd Hirsch of Diamond McCarthy organized and moderated the event. In a little over an hour, we discussed the characteristics that commonly occur in transactions that produce formal claims, offered suggestions on how deal-makers can manage the risk of earl disputes, and answered several thoughtful questions from the audience. I enjoyed the session immensely. Please see my review of the lively discussion below. Continue Reading Why Some Deals Result in Disputes

Handshake with TearThe Association for Corporate Growth sponsors a talk today by a panel of lawyers (including yours truly) on The Morning After: Why Some Deals Result in Investor and Contract Party Claims. The hour-long session will cover:

1. Traits of deals that result in formal disputes.
2. Ways for deal lawyers to manage dispute risk.
3. How to know when to bring in the dispute specialists.

The deal-makers in the audience will have lots of great questions. My next post, on Monday, November 23, will provide highlights of the talk, and I will also offer my take-aways from the topic and discussion.

I invite you to subscribe to The Contingency now to assure that you receive all posts.

imageClass action skeptics

Since 2011, a 5-4 majority of the Supreme Court has made class actions harder to bring and tougher to sustain.

In the current term, the Court’s quintet of class action skeptics — Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Alito, Kennedy, Scalia, and Thomas — may use a pair of cases in which it has heard arguments to all but doom wide swaths of class cases altogether.

I write not to address those cases but to explain why even if the threats they pose prove non-fatal, the reprieve may not last. Two other petitions for review on the Court’s docket pose existential threats almost as potent. Continue Reading The Next Death Threat to Class Actions

imageThe Third Circuit’s decision in In re Avandia Marketing, Sales Practices & Product Liability Litigation, No. 14-1948 (3d Cir. Oct. 26, 2015), accepts a path-breaking fraud-on-the-intermediary theory under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act of 1970 (RICO), which allows you to recover three times your actual damages plus reasonable attorneys’ fees. Expect more cases like this. Continue Reading Rewards of RICO

PortfolioFinding your patents

Since 1990, 4,008,329 utility patents have won U.S. Patent and Trademark Office approval. In 2014 alone, the USPTO granted more than 300,000 of them. And those awards went to a wide range of patenting entities — 38,000 of them, in fact.

If you do legal work for companies of any size, those clients of yours likely own at least one patent and may have quite a few (several hundred entities received 40 or more patent grants just in 2014). Do you have any idea how many or what inventions they cover?

Don’t worry if you don’t. You can get a list and see a copy of the patents in no time flat. Continue Reading Should You Do a Patent Portfolio Review?

FundingBig dollars in business cases

Expenses in big-dollar lawsuits can run into the millions of dollars. An antitrust class action that I’ve handled since 2003, for instance, cost more than $8 million. The law firms representing the class fronted all that money, with no assurance we would ever get any of it back. Why would any sane person do such a thing? Continue Reading The Cost of Funding Litigation Expenses

FundingSizable expenses

A big commercial case can cost millions in expenses — by which I mean out-of-pocket costs that the plaintiff or its counsel must pay net of attorneys’ fees. A portfolio of cases — for infringement of a patent or family of patents, say — can run many millions more. Who will bear that burden? And what will it cost? Continue Reading The Cost of Third-Party Litigation Funding