Judges slam useless objections at AIPLA Annual Meeting
Managing IP is part of the Delinian Group, Delinian Limited, 4 Bouverie Street, London, EC4Y 8AX, Registered in England & Wales, Company number 00954730
Copyright © Delinian Limited and its affiliated companies 2024

Accessibility | Terms of Use | Privacy Policy | Modern Slavery Statement

Judges slam useless objections at AIPLA Annual Meeting

Hochberg Faith

Judges and private practice lawyers yesterday warned it hurts clients when lawyers tussle over every claim construction term and discovery request, regardless of whether they affect the outcome of the case

Hochberg Faith AIPLA

Judge Hildy Bowbeer, magistrate judge in the District of Minnesota, said lawyers instead need to think carefully and identify the issues that are central to the case. The goal is to ensure that both sides’ rights are protected while reining in the “autopilot shotgun” style of litigation that has come to characterize many patent disputes.

Judge John Koeltl, district judge for the Southern District of New Jersey, said: “It’s not uncommon for a firm to put what must be an associate on a deposition and to give the instruction to object to everything in the deposition, so you get objections to every line which read ‘401, 403, irrelevant, overly prejudicial,’” he said. “It is utterly useless.”

Retired judge Faith Hochberg, formerly a district judge in the District of New Jersey, made a similar point. Sometimes when she asks why a lawyer made a particular objection in the record, the lawyer is unable to answer. “I think it was to keep somebody awake during a deposition; if you have to speak, you can’t sleep,” she joked.

Hochberg also stressed the need for lead counsel to be involved early. In one case, when she requested draft findings of fact and conclusions of law for a short and not particularly complicated bench trial, the parties submitted 800 pages on these issues.  She issued an order for the parties to re-file after lead counsel has read and edited the original submissions and got 49 pages back. “If I hadn’t done what I did, my law clerk would have been lost in 751 pages of unnecessary reading and probably lost the important stuff that they really wanted us to know,” she said.

more from across site and ros bottom lb

More from across our site

A 36-member team from Zhong Lun Law Firm, including six partners, will join the newly formed East IP Group
The Delhi High Court sided with Ericsson against Indian smartphone maker Lava, bringing the companies' nine-year dispute to a close
We provide a rundown of Managing IP’s news and analysis from the week, and review what’s been happening elsewhere in IP
Tennessee has passed the ELVIS Act, a law that fights against AI models that mimic the voice and likeness of music artists
Rob Stien, chief communications and public policy officer at InterDigital, says the EU has forgotten innovators while trying to solve an issue that doesn’t exist
As Australia’s Qantm IP leans towards being acquired by a private equity company, sources discuss what it could mean for IP firms
Law firms that are conscious of their role in society are more likely to win work, according to a survey of over 23,000 in-house professionals
Nghiem Xuan Bac Pham, managing partner of Vision & Associates, discusses opportunities created by the US-China rift as well as profitability issues facing IP practices
Douglas Leite and two of his colleagues were intrigued by Bhering Advogados’s mission to grow its patent litigation practice
Each week Managing IP speaks to a different IP practitioner about their life and career
Gift this article