Given that patent litigation brought by nonperforming entities continues in full blossom, it’s no surprise that former big-firm lawyers have been leaping in to get a piece of the action on the plaintiffs side. But representing NPEs carries risks for lawyers who earned their patent pedigrees at defense firms, as a pair of decisions highlighted on Feb. 23.
First the good news for patent defendants: San Francisco federal district court judge William Alsup granted a motion by counsel for Toshiba at Paul Hastings and disqualified Feinberg Day Alberti & Thompson from representing an NPE called Talon Research in an infringement suit against Toshiba over memory chip technology. Six Feinberg Day lawyers had represented Toshiba between 2005 and 2007 — and collectively billed the company for almost 4,000 hours in litigation related to flash memory patents — while practicing at DLA Piper.
