Judges slam useless objections at AIPLA Annual Meeting

Managing IP is part of Legal Benchmarking Limited, 1-2 Paris Gardens, London, SE1 8ND

Copyright © Legal Benchmarking Limited and its affiliated companies 2025

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 SHARED ros bottom lb

More from across our site

Leaders at US law firms explain what attorneys can learn from AI cases involving Meta and Anthropic, and why the outcomes could guide litigation strategies
Attorneys reveal the trademark and copyright trends they’ve noticed within the first half of 2025
Senior leaders at TE Connectivity and Clarivate explain how they see the future of innovation
A new action filed by Nokia against Asus and a landmark ruling on counterfeits by South Africa’s Supreme Court were also among the top talking points
Counsel explain how they’re navigating patent prosecution matters and highlight key takeaways from Federal Circuit cases
A partner who joined Fenwick alongside two others explains what drew her to the firm and her hopes for growth in Boston
The England and Wales High Court has granted Kirkland & Ellis client Samsung interim declaratory relief in its ongoing FRAND dispute with ZTE
A UDRP decision that found in favour of a small business in a domain name dispute could encourage more businesses to take a stand in ‘David v Goliath’ cases
In Iconix v Dream Pairs, the Supreme Court said the Court of Appeal was wrong to interfere with an earlier ruling, prompting questions about the appeal court’s remit
Chris Moore at HGF reflects on the ‘spirit of collegiality’ that led to an important ruling in G1/24, a case concerning how European patent claims should be interpreted
Gift this article