Legal Ethics
Suit Claims Thelen Helped Siphon IP from One Client to Another
Posted Jul 25, 2008, 06:04 am CDT
By Debra Cassens Weiss
A technology company once represented by Thelen Reid Brown Raysman & Steiner claims in a lawsuit that the firm helped transfer its intellectual property to another client.
The June lawsuit filed by IVI Smart Technologies Inc. and two subsidiaries claims actions by the law firm and San Jose, Calif., partner David Ritchie caused the companies’ market capitalization to drop from $200 million to $20 million, the Recorder reports. The subsidiaries are e-Smart Technologies Inc. and Biosensor LLC.
All three companies develop fingerprint verification technologies. The complaint says Thelen agreed to represent e-Smart in 2004 to negotiate a manufacturing agreement with competitor Michael Gardiner, without disclosing that the law firm had represented Gardiner or his entities twice before, the story says. The associate assigned to represent e-Smart had also represented Gardiner, according to the complaint filed in federal court in Manhattan.
The suit says the conflict worsened when Thelen agreed to represent Gardiner in 2006 but tried to hide it by keeping the retainer check in a desk drawer and keeping the information out of its database.
Gardiner later hired all of e-Smart’s research and engineering staff for his new company, ID Smart, and said he had developed his own intellectual property, the suit says.
Thelen says the lawsuit is without merit.
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