Law Firms
Foley & Lardner Reaches Tentative Deal to Settle Patent Malpractice Suit
Posted Jun 2, 2009, 10:19 am CST
By Debra Cassens Weiss
Foley & Lardner has reached a tentative agreement to settle a malpractice suit that contends the law firm missed a deadline for an international patent application.
The terms of the deal are confidential, the National Law Journal reports. The suit filed by biotech company Vaxiion Therapeutics Inc. had claimed Foley & Lardner missed a deadline for the provisional application for an international patent by four days, according to a January 2007 story in the Recorder. The complaint contended the blown deadline allowed a competitor to profit from the same intellectual property.
U.S. District Judge Irma Gonzalez of the Southern District of California had dismissed several of Vaxiion’s claims on a motion for summary judgment in December.
The NLJ story says the suit is among an increasing number of patent malpractice claims against law firms.