A federal judge on Thursday reprimanded lawyers at a New York law firm for “sloppiness” in their intellectual property case against the University of California, Los Angeles, and suggested “more experienced” patent lawyers should have been consulted in the litigation.
In a 15-page order, U.S. District Judge Joshua Wolson in Philadelphia criticized how Harras Bloom & Archer, a small real-estate focused firm based in Melville, New York, handled the case and said he hoped his ruling would serve as a “cautionary tale.”
Wolson concluded that the Harras Bloom lawyers for plaintiff PeriRx Inc, a medical diagnostic company, “took on a complicated case about patent licensing, apparently without a background in patent law.” Certain filings, he said, “were rambling and duplicative, and even at times internally inconsistent.”
Harras Bloom partner Linda Agnew told Reuters on Friday that “while I don’t necessarily agree that a reprimand is appropriate, I have the utmost respect for Judge Wolson and will take his comments under advisement.”
