Repros Therapeutics Inc. announced Dec. 29 that a federal judge in Texas has issued a definitive ruling finding correct inventorship for two of the company’s Androxal patents, confirming that Repros Therapeutics is the sole and rightful owner of the patents, U.S. Patent No. 7,759,360 (the “‘360 patent”) and U.S. Patent No. 7,737,185 (the “‘185 patent”).

Calling Dr. Harry Fisch’s claims of co-inventorship “strained to the point of absurdity,” Judge Vanessa Gilmore of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas found that Dr. Fisch “contributed nothing to the actual invention” of the ‘360 patent. She also found “an absence of material facts to support a finding of co-inventorship” of the ‘185 patent.

A release from Repros stated:

Dr. Fisch, a New York urologist and fertility specialist, has made numerous statements, including to the news media, that he was a co-inventor and had contributed to the conception of the patents.

Repros filed suit against Dr. Fisch in August 2013 seeking a declaratory judgment of ownership and inventorship of the ‘360 and ‘185 patents regarding the treatment of hypogonadism in men. In the lawsuit, the Company asserted that Repros’ President and CEO, Joseph S. Podolski, was correctly named as the sole inventor of the ‘360 patent, and that he and Repros Vice President of Research and Development, Ronald Wiehle, were correctly named as co-inventors of the ‘185 patent.

In October 2013, Dr. Fisch filed counterclaims against Repros as well as against Mr. Podolski and Dr. Wiehle, seeking correction of inventorship of these patents.

On the basis of equitable estoppel and an absence of material facts to support a finding of co-inventorship in the case of each of the patents, the court granted both of Repros’ motions for summary judgment and denied Dr. Fisch’s motion for summary judgment.

The decision confirms Repros’ rights to the Androxal patents.

A Texas jury has awarded hedge-fund firm Highland Capital Management $40 million in its lawsuit against Credit Suisse over inflated appraisals of a dozen luxury properties, the Wall Street Journal reports.

The properties include golf communities and ski resorts financed during the mid-2000s.

Highland sued Credit Suisse in July 2013 in state district court in Dallas, alleging the bank improperly inflated the value of the communities to entice investors.

Highland’s Claymore Holdings LLC also is seeking another $300 million in connection with the jury’s finding that Credit Suisse committed fraud. That case is slated for trial next year, the Journal reports.

Read the story.

A North Carolina employment case before a federal appeals court illustrates the significant amount of time and money an employer had to invest to stave off post-trial issues driven by the former employee’s request for attorneys’ fees, reports HR.BLR.com.

The case was in the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, which covers Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia.

The suit was based on a North Carlina case in which a woman sued her employer, claiming she was denied a promotion because of her gender. The case bounced back and forth from lower to higher courts. The lesson, HR.BLR.com explains in its report, lies in the expense and difficulty of defending the case, even with an eventual  favorable decision.

Read the story.

A lawsuit alleges Gilead Sciences is price gouging by pricing its Sovaldi hepatitis C treatment at $1,000 a pill, the Wall Street Journal reports in one of its blogs.

The Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority, which serves the greater Philadelphia area, last week filed an unusual lawsuit claiming that Gilead is price gouging. The drug maker charges $84,000 for a 12-week regimen, or $1,000 a pill.

“In arguing its case, the transit agency claims that, by using ‘exorbitant pricing,’ Gilead has made it difficult for some consumers and government programs to afford its medication and, subsequently, violated antitrust laws,” the blog reports.

A Gilead spokeswoman is quoted as saying the lawsuit is “completely devoid of merit.”

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Winstead presents a complimentary on-demand webinar discussing the pros and cons of pre-judgment and post-judgment remedies.

A judgment without any recovery is at best an empty victory, Winstead says on its website.

Understanding pre-judgment and post-judgment remedies can be critical to the success of turning the judgment into cash.  This webinar discusses the pros and cons of pre-judgment and post-judgment remedies, the strategic use of pre-judgment remedies to shorten the litigation process, and available remedies against LLC members and partners.

Post-judgment bankruptcy strategies are also discussed.

Watch the on-demand webinar.

The Washington Legal Foundation has posted a free on-demand webinar discussing the Spokeo case currently before the U.S. Supreme Court and the issue of “no-injury” class actions.

Spokeo Inc. v. Robbins raises the question whether Congress may confer Article III standing upon a plaintiff who suffers no concrete harm, and who therefore could not otherwise invoke the jurisdiction of a federal court, by authorizing a private right of action based on a bare violation of a federal statute, Mayer Brown says on its website. This question of Article III standing potentially impacts a wide variety of lawsuits that Mayer Brown views as “no-injury” class actions.

Mayer Brown represents the petitioner.

Watch the on-demand webinar.

Google and Verizon have entered into a long-term patent cross-license agreement intended to thwart lawsuits from trolls, PC Magazine reports.

The deal covers “a broad range of products and technologies,” though neither company expanded on the details.

A joint press release said the deal ideally will allow Verizon and Google to ward off future patent litigation.

“In high-tech industries like ours, the patent system can be exploited to get in the way of innovation,” wrote Verizon’s general counsel, Randal Milch. “High-tech products can implicate thousands of patents, and when patent litigation takes years, costs millions of dollars, and comes long after innovators have launched new products, the Johnny-come-lately owner of a single patent can threaten an entire innovative ecosystem. That’s bad for innovation and bad for American consumers.”

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If legislators won’t pass tougher gun control, the argument goes, then crusading lawyers will seek justice in court. But the strategy hasn’t worked in the past—and it won’t work in the future. But Bloomberg Businessweek says gun-control advocates’ plans have some basic weaknesses.

The latest attempt to sue a gunmaker for firearm mayhem is under way in Connecticut.

Businessweek says lawyers working on the Sandy Hook suit know they will run into the liability-shield law, and they think they have a solution: an exception in the law that allows suits based on the theory of “negligent entrustment.” Under the shield law a defendant can still be held liable for entrusting a dangerous product to another party who then causes harm to a victim or victims.

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The Harvard Law School Program on Dispute Resolution offers a free white paper offering advice on understanding how relationships can help someone to negotiate even the most difficult conversations.

On its website, the Program on Dispute Resolution says the free special report provides strategies on successfully negotiating difficult disputes, preserving relationships, and reaching mutually beneficial agreements.

Topics include how to:

• Foster relationships by building rapport
• Manage conflict in long-term relationships
• Negotiate business decisions with family members

Download the free white paper.

Ten groups of top technology, media and business organizations on Dec. 15 filed legal briefs in support of Microsoft’s argument to a federal appeals court that the U.S. government cannot issue a search warrant to obtain customers’ e-mails held in another country, reports The Washington Post.

The unusually high number of friend-of-the-court briefs and the breadth of groups that signed on reflect how significant the issue of privacy in the digital age is to U.S. industry.

Apple, Amazon and HP, as well as news organizations from across the political spectrum like CNN, Fox News, NPR and The Guardian, have all signed amicus briefs supporting Microsoft’s fight to keep its users’ emails away from the U.S. government.

Read the story.

Some former employees of Sony Pictures Entertainment have filed a suit forcing the company to defend the security measures it took in advance of the hack.

The complaint was filed on behalf of Michael Corona, who says he worked at the company from 2004 to 2007, and Christina Mathis, who says she worked at the company between 2000 and 2002. Both say they had information such as social security numbers leaked, reports The Hollywood Reporter.

The report continues:

The plaintiffs are represented by attorneys at the law firm of Keller Rohrback who are demanding actual and statutory damages, restitution and disgorgement for causes of action that include negligence, health privacy and a California statute requiring notifications of data breaches. They haven’t estimated the value of the damages, but they are also demanding equitable relief including forcing Sony to provide credit monitoring for at least five years, identity theft insurance, credit restoration service and requiring Sony receive periodic compliance audits by a third party regarding the security of its computer systems.

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The Washington Legal Foundation presents a complimentary webinar on the clash between statutes and the Constitution in non-injury class actions.

The event also discusses a pending petition for certiorari that urges Supreme Court intervention in such a case.

Business enterprises increasingly face lawsuits in which plaintiffs have suffered no actual “injury-in-fact,” but are able to seek damages under federal and state laws that create private rights of action, the WLF says on its website. Though such statutorily-created harm clashes with Article III’s constitutional requirement of standing to sue, federal courts of appeals are split on whether this lawyer-driven litigation is permissible.

Watch the on-demand webinar.

The U.S. Supreme Court will hear a case that asks whether a company discriminates by refusing to provide a simple accommodation to an expectant mother.

The ABA Journal reports on the case of Peggy Young, who was a part-time delivery driver for United Parcel Service when she became pregnant in 2006. She sought an accommodation from her employer based on a fairly standard restriction imposed by her doctor: no lifting of anything greater than 20 pounds in the first 20 weeks of pregnancy and nothing more than 10 pounds thereafter.

But UPS told Young that company policy did not permit light duty for pregnant drivers because an essential function of the job was to be able to lift up to 70 pounds, the Journal reports.

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When patent attorney Michael Sander and his colleagues started noticing that some judges on the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) were rejecting more patents than others, Sander built a predictive tool that tells an attorney with a new PTAB case his chances of success, based on an instant, computer analysis of every similar case handled by the same judge, Wired reports.

Interest in the PTAB analytical tool has grown quickly, especially because there’s no competition.

Another example of using technology for trial strategy cited by Wired is the case of three law professors who are developing a tool that’s predicting Supreme Court decisions with about 70 percent accuracy. The professors assume the tool will eventually be put to use for the lower courts, since there’s such a strong need for it.

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EDRM, the leading standards organization for the e-discovery market, has released an updated Statistical Sampling Applied to Electronic Discovery. The release, published on the EDRM website, is open for public comment. At the conclusion of the public comment period on January 9, 2015, input will be reviewed and considered for incorporation before the updated materials are finalized.

Inn a release, EDRM says the updated materials provide guidance regarding the use of statistical sampling in e-discovery. Much of the information is definitional and conceptual and intended for a broad audience. Other materials (including an accompanying spreadsheet) provide additional information, particularly technical information, for e-discovery practitioners who are responsible for developing further expertise in this area.

Read the updated document.

Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunner presents a free on-demand webinar on the importance of adequate preparation in patent infringement litigation.

Advanced preparation and strategic planning among business leaders, technical and regulatory personnel, inside counsel, and outside counsel can be essential to position your company for a successful outcome, the firm says on its website.

Webinar topics include:

• Using best practices to obtain patent claims that maximize your chances of proving patent infringement and defending against patentability challenges;
• Investigating the potential issues, important documents, and major players that will provide key information during discovery and at trial;
• Developing litigation themes to ensure that the litigation proceeds on the correct path;
• Coordinating company communications to ensure that representations are accurate and consistent with the company’s litigation positions; and
• Using proceedings at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to strengthen your portfolio or to avoid potentially expensive and disruptive litigation.

Watch the on-demand webinar.

An elite cadre of lawyers has emerged as first among equals, giving their clients a disproportionate chance to influence the law of the land because their appeals are more likely to be accepted by the U.S. Supreme Court than others, reports Reuters.

A Reuters examination of nine years of cases shows that 66 of the 17,000 lawyers who petitioned the Supreme Court succeeded at getting their clients’ appeals heard at a remarkable rate. Their appeals were at least six times more likely to be accepted by the court than were all others filed by private lawyers during that period.

“The lawyers are the most influential members of one of the most powerful specialties in America: the business of practicing before the Supreme Court.” the Reuters report says. “None of these lawyers is a household name. But many are familiar to the nine justices. That’s because about half worked for justices past or present, and some socialize with them.”

Read the story.

Cisco Systems filed a suit on Dec. 5 against Arista Networks, a networking switch company and fast-moving competitor, accusing it of copying large amounts of Cisco’s work, reports The New York Times.

In the suit, the plaintiff claimed Arista violated 14 Cisco patents, some of which were based on work by Andreas Bechtolsheim and David Cheriton, Arista’s founders, when they were at Cisco. The two men, well-respected engineers, sold a company, Granite Systems, to Cisco in 1996.

The case, filed in the Federal District Court in Northern California, will probably go on for at least months, according to The Times‘ report. Cisco’s stated goal is to force Arista to withdraw its crucial products from the market, along with seeking damages.

Read the story.

In a federal lawsuit against a former client, Venable doesn’t simply accuse Overseas Lease Group Inc. of failing to pay a $300,000 bill, reports the ABA Journal.

The company fraudulently induced Venable to step in and pursue big-ticket contract litigation against the U.S. government on its behalf after failing to pay a $229,000 bill to its former counsel, contends the complaint in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, The Journal reports.

Then, by urging Venable to handle the case aggressively, OLG unnecessarily ran up the bill at its new law firm, the suit says.

“We intend to vigorously defend the allegations, including raising claims of gross overbilling, overstaffing and duplicative charging of time as reported to us by our independent expert’s review of the Venable invoices,” OLG general counsel Donna Marie Zerbo told the Blog of Legal Times.

Read the story.

The Association of Corporate Counsel’s Litigation Committee presents a free on-demand webinar on the international judgment enforcement and asset recovery process.

The event was sponsored by Kobre & Kim LLP.

On its website, ACC says the value of judgments and arbitration awards coming out of large-scale litigation continues to rise, so does the challenge of enforcing them. Sophisticated judgment debtors today often hold assets protected in a variety of structures in offshore financial centers around the world, which create challenging roadblocks to efficient and prompt recovery that can only be overcome with the right tools and strategies.

In this webcast, a group of internationally based attorneys, experienced in enforcing high value judgments and recovering hidden assets share their first-hand insights into the international judgment enforcement and asset recovery process. The panel discussion includes analysis of effective asset tracing, utilizing specific legal tools available in the U.S., Europe, Asia and offshore jurisdictions as well as the alternative fee structures available to minimize costs and risks.

Watch the on-demand webinar.