02.10.18
Gemini version available ♊︎Lawyer Fraud and the Unified Patent Court (UPC)
Advocates, barristers, solicitors, attorneys and lawyers are typically in it for the money (justice being a “nice to have”)
Summary: Ethical lapses in the profession which many wrongly assume to be law-abiding and further discussion about never-ending lies from Team UPC, which strives to undermine the law in order to profit from frivolous litigation
TWO years ago we were told about fraud at the EPO. We were told this by reliable sources (based on their track record), but nobody with access to evidential material is courageous enough to come out and leak it. Seeing how large publishers (corporate media) or “the press” mostly disregards/ignores EPO scandals, maybe it’s not perceived to be worth the risk.
“Seeing how large publishers (corporate media) or “the press” mostly disregards/ignores EPO scandals, maybe it’s not perceived to be worth the risk.”A few days ago, serving somewhat of a blow/shock to the so-called ‘IP’ industry, an ‘IP’ lawyer was sentenced for 7 years. It’s a fraud case. Articles about that, e.g. this one, do not name the person or simply use a paywall to hide it. The term ‘IP’ (patents, trademarks, copyrights, trade secrets etc.) is used extensively, so it’s hard to know if it relates to the USPTO (which does not deal with copyrights). The article says: “An IP lawyer with Big Law grooming now faces prison time after admitting to money laundering.”
We occasionally write about ethics in the patent world because we want to highlight, even to examiners, that there’s a lot of foul play. The other day David Hricik wrote about “Unethical Arbitration Clauses” (by which he refers to lawyer ethical rules). To quote:
This is a non-precedential Third Circuit decision, Smith v. Lindemann (3rd Cir. No. 16-3357 (Sept. 21, 2017), and it’s dicta, but it is worth noting because I have blogged about arbitration and awards that violate public policy, as set forth in lawyer ethical rules, before.
In this case, the client sought an order from the district court that her legal malpractice claim was not subject to arbitration because New Jersey prohibited agreements requiring arbitration of malpractice claims and, even if it were sometimes permitted, the client had to give informed consent.
Breach of duty, moreover, was noted just before the weekend in relation to another case:
Following a jury verdict of infringement and invalidity, the court granted in part defendant’s motion for judgment as a matter of law that plaintiff was equitably estopped from enforcing its anticoagulant patent.
Just to repeat (or put more emphasis on this), we are not suggesting that this whole occupation is scandalous and dishonest. Having said that, seeing the sorts of lies that come out from Team UPC we can’t help but feel like many lawyers are liars. That’s how they make money.
“Many people are led to believe that the job title “lawyer” implies adherence to the law; in practice, however, these people often use their skills to work around the law, to misrepresent the law, and engage in mischievous activity.”Case of point: CIPA et al (or Team UPC, UPC lobby or whatever one calls that cabal) is trying to mislead people like Sam Gyimah, conflating the EPO (or EPC) with UPC; the UK can remain in the EPO after Brexit (nothing new here), but not the UPC, as that introduces legal constructs that aren’t just unconstitutional and unconventional; why would a Britain outside the EU let British companies be subjected to court orders written in a language other than English in another country? There are many other issues.
Team UPC posted a link to outright delusional spin and lies from Bristows, basing on that some sort of insane vision which goes like this: “Start of UPC (ie, the PPA) in 2018 possible, but only if DE constitutional complaint declared inadmissible; certainly not if admitted for full trial (irresp. of whth Constitutional Ct refers to ECJ or not). If the latter, problem w approaching Brexit.”
“We don’t mind hurting the feelings of a few lawyers here and there if we merely name and shame a few of them (or some particular law firms).”First of all, it’s improbable that the complaint will be deemed inadmissible; we know enough about that and many parties approach by FCC did not even bother making a submission. Many inside Team UPC too have given up. And regardless of Germany, the UK cannot enter the UPC. It just cannot, short of mischief or violations of laws/constitution.
Many people are led to believe that the job title “lawyer” implies adherence to the law; in practice, however, these people often use their skills to work around the law, to misrepresent the law, and engage in mischievous activity. We don’t mind hurting the feelings of a few lawyers here and there if we merely name and shame a few of them (or some particular law firms). Not all lawyers are bad; far from that! But the presumption of innocence or honesty would be misplaced. █
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