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jeudi 28 mai 2015

How To Profit From Patent Litigation Contingency Fee Agreements

By Tammie Caldwell


A patent owner would win an infringement on their patent case should they prove that an offending party used their patented technology and idea without permission. A defendant would then attempt to demonstrate that the patent in question was either invalid, unenforceable or no infringement had taken place. Fees charged by attorneys to represent aggrieved individuals or institutions in such cases are often high. An option to reduce such expenses would be taking advantage of patent litigation contingency fee arrangements.

A patent is a publicly recognized and restricted right to make use of a certain invention. Infringement takes place when another party other than the patented inventions owner sells makes or uses it. The lawsuit filed because of patent infringement disputes is termed as patent litigation.

By taking advantage of litigation arrangements based on contingent fees, you will drastically reduce the legal fees you have to foot before full settlement. With this kind of arrangement, your attorney shall deduct their fees from the money you get on settlement. There are certain expenses you will have to meet though. These include hiring your expert witnesses, travel, filing fees, transcripts and conducting depositions.

Such an arrangement gives aggrieved inventors opportunities to conduct lawsuits against parties that have breached their intellectual property. They could not have afforded this in the first place. An inventor also reduces chances of losing such litigation because they pay their lawyers against results and not hours of work. Such arrangements highly motivate lawyers to settle lawsuits if it best suits their clients.

During the litigation process, the defendant and their attorney could settle the case by offering a settlement amount lower than that sought by the plaintiff. Weakness of the suit appearing may make an attorney advice their client to settle. Conversely, if a defense lawyer is sure of winning, they can advise a client to wait out the full trial because their settlement amount would be bigger.

Upon taking a case on contingent fee basis, intellectual property attorneys perform their best in order to make the litigation process less time consuming and cost effective. This is in contrast with attorneys who charge their clients by the hour. Such attorneys conduct long and numerous depositions. They prepare long proceedings and send a number of attorneys to conferences and hearings. These activities increase the hours worked on a lawsuit. These kind of activities rarely take place if the attorneys are charging their client on contingency fees arrangements.

During initial consultations, lawyers specializing in infringement on intellectual property evaluate the merits of a case carefully. They try to find out how big the settlement would be. If a case is weak, lacks credibility or has a number of issues, such lawyers often decline to take up the case. When a lawyer takes up such a case, it is because they have confidence of wining once they have invested in adequate effort.

The client needs to help their lawyer when they can, which presents them with higher chances of winning. Prudence is a client providing their lawyer with requested information fast. Formation of excellent relationships between client and lawyer during intellectual property infringement cases is critical. This raises the odds for winning thereby bagging huge settlements and fees.




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