02/17/2004
New York Court Holds That an IP Law Firm Representing Clients with Competing Technologies Engages in a Conflict of Interest
G.D. Searle & Co., Inc. v. Pennie & Edmonds, LLP, Supreme Court, New York County, (New York Law Journal, January 26, 2004, page 18).

Brief Summary

This is the first case to specifically address conflicts of interest arising from a lawyer’s representation of clients with competing technologies and the court in this case found that such representation does constitute a conflict of interest. To avoid similar conflict of interest situations from arising in the future, patent and trademark law firms should build into their conflicts checking systems a way to identify related technologies for which the firm is filing patent applications for different clients.
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