{"id":27,"date":"2013-01-29T14:57:00","date_gmt":"2013-01-29T14:57:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sherin.com\/professional-liability\/2013\/01\/29\/federal-jurisdiction-over-patent-malpractice-claims\/"},"modified":"2023-11-08T18:49:25","modified_gmt":"2023-11-08T18:49:25","slug":"federal-jurisdiction-over-patent-malpractice-claims","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sherin.com\/law-firm-defense\/2013\/01\/29\/federal-jurisdiction-over-patent-malpractice-claims\/","title":{"rendered":"Federal Jurisdiction Over Patent Malpractice Claims"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>On January 16, 2013, the United States Supreme Court heard oral argument in <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Gunn v. Minton<\/span>, a case in which the Court must determine whether and when federal courts have exclusive<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" id=\"img-1376574988092\" class=\"alignRight\" style=\"float: right;\" src=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/supreme court.jpg\" alt=\"describe the image\" width=\"285\" height=\"214\" border=\"0\" \/>\u00a0jurisdiction over legal malpractice claims involving patent issues.\u00a0 In the ordinary course, legal malpractice claims, which arise out of allegations of negligence, are heard in state court, unless diversity jurisdiction applies.<\/p>\n<p>The question of whether federal courts have exclusive jurisdiction, pursuant to section 28 U.S.C. \u00a7 1338(a), over legal malpractice claims arising out of patent prosecution or patent litigation was addressed in 2007.\u00a0 In two unrelated cases, the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals held that the federal courts have exclusive subject matter jurisdiction over patent malpractice cases.\u00a0 Those decisions heralded a sea change in jurisdiction over what everyone concedes is a state common law tort \u2013 legal malpractice.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>In March and April 2012, however, Federal Circuit Judge Kathleen M. O\u2019Malley, in both dissenting and concurring opinions, called for her Court to reconsider its position.\u00a0 Judge O\u2019Malley concluded that her Court had misapplied Supreme Court precedent and failed to examine independently whether the precise \u201cpatent\u201d issue in the malpractice cases was \u201csubstantial\u201d in addition to being necessary.\u00a0 \u00a0According to Judge O\u2019Malley, necessity and substantiality are two separate prongs of the four-part test used to determine federal court jurisdiction.\u00a0 \u00a0She wrote: \u201cBy finding that whenever a federal issue is a necessary element of a plaintiff\u2019s state law claim, the federal issue automatically is a substantial one, our case law has collapsed the inquiry and discarded substantiality as a separate consideration.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Minton<\/span>, a Texas state court patent malpractice case wound its way to the Texas Supreme Court. \u00a0\u00a0The Texas Supreme Court relied on the 2007 Federal Circuit decisions and held that it lacked jurisdiction and, therefore, could not reach the merits of the legal malpractice claim.\u00a0 Three judges dissented, arguing that the Federal Circuit \u201chas not remained faithful to the Supreme Court\u2019s federalism inquiry in the context of malpractice decisions arising from patent cases.\u201d \u00a0\u00a0Although the legal malpractice claim depended upon a determination of whether the experimental use exception was available as a defense in the underling patent infringement suit, because there was no dispute about the \u201cvalidity, construction or effect\u201d of the experimental use exception, the dissenting judges concluded the case on appeal did not involve a controversy about any federal issue.\u00a0\u00a0 They wrote: \u201c[h]ere, the federal issue is not substantial for three reasons the Supreme Court has outlined: (1) the determination is one of fact \u2013 not law; (2) it will not result in precedent that controls numerous other cases; and (3) it involves federal common law, not a federal statute.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The United States Supreme Court\u2019s decision in <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Minton<\/span> may have a broad impact, particularly where one study concludes that legal malpractice claims arising from alleged patent prosecution mistakes or patent litigation errors rose 30 percent from 2003 to 2007 and continue to rise.<\/p>\n<p>You can read the transcript of the oral argument before the Supreme Court <a title=\"here. \" href=\"http:\/\/blog.sherin.com\/Portals\/156708\/docs\/transcript gunn v minton us sct.pdf\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"noopener\">here. <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On January 16, 2013, the United States Supreme Court heard oral argument in Gunn v. Minton, a case in which the Court must determine whether and when federal courts have exclusive\u00a0jurisdiction over legal malpractice claims involving patent issues.\u00a0 In the ordinary course, legal malpractice claims, which arise out of allegations of negligence, are heard in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":57,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Federal Jurisdiction Over Patent Malpractice Claims - Law Firm Defense<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.sherin.com\/law-firm-defense\/2013\/01\/29\/federal-jurisdiction-over-patent-malpractice-claims\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Federal Jurisdiction Over Patent Malpractice Claims - Law Firm Defense\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"On January 16, 2013, the United States Supreme Court heard oral argument in Gunn v. 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