Acacia Research Corp. should have brought shovels to court Wednesday, given the hole it kept digging before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.
The nonpracticing entity argued that it had done nothing wrong in hiring the in-house intellectual property chief from oil services company Schlumberger Ltd. and then suing Schlumberger for patent infringement. But the Federal Circuit judges gave no indication they would reverse a sweeping order that disqualified all of Acacia’s in-house lawyers and one of its law firms from the case. Federal Circuit Judge Evan Wallach described Acacia’s conduct as “suborn[ing] disloyalty.”
