A federal judge in Delaware has disqualified Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati from defending a software company in one of the first patent infringement suits filed by patent hoarding company Intellectual Ventures.
On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Leonard P. Stark granted Intellectual Ventures’ motion to disqualify Wilson Sonsini from serving as counsel for Israel-based Check Point Software Technologies Ltd.
In papers filed in April, lawyers for IV said Wilson had “unfettered access” to its secrets until it stopped representing IV almost two years ago, and shouldn’t now be allowed to represent its adversaries.
Wilson Sonsini represented IV from November 2002 to May 2009, serving as primary counsel in several matters, according to a partially redacted motion submitted by IV.
In December, IV sued Check Point and eight other tech companies for infringement of patents related to computer security and semiconductor technology.
Also remember that a patent infringement law suite can be a David-versus-Goliath confrontation. Defendants in patent infringement lawsuits are usually large corporations with unlimited resources, while plaintiffs in patent infringement lawsuits are often individuals or small businesses with very limited resources.
Posted by: Mike | July 07, 2011 at 04:35 PM