Patents, Patent Agent Privilege, Discovery

Attorney-Client Privilege for Foreign Patent Agents and European Patent Attorneys

Fish & Richardson on 9/4/2025

Attorney-client privilege refers to the protection of confidential communications made for the purpose of obtaining or providing legal advice. Application of and exceptions to this privilege are fact-based determinations made...more

Use of Patent Agents Increasingly Fortified

Miles & Stockbridge P.C. on 3/9/2018

On Friday, February 23, 2018, the Texas Supreme Court overturned a lower court’s ruling that attorney-client privilege does not extend to patent agents. The ruling, bound to reverberate throughout the intellectual property...more

Canadian IP law and practice in 2016: reviewing the highlights

Smart & Biggar on 1/12/2017

As the calendar turns the page from 2016 to 2017, we take the opportunity to review Canadian IP law and practice highlights from the past year....more

Patent-Agent Privilege and the USPTO’s Proposed New Rule

Mintz - Intellectual Property Viewpoints on 11/1/2016

Several recent court decisions have shed light on the patent agent privilege, and now the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is seeking to weigh-in on the issue....more

Federal Patent-Agent Privilege Not Recognized in Texas State Courts

McDermott Will & Schulte on 9/30/2016

Finding that Texas state courts lacked authority to recognize common-law discovery privileges, the Texas Court of Appeals for the Fifth District refused to recognize the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit’s recently...more

In re Queen's University at Kingston (Fed. Cir. 2016)

McDonnell Boehnen Hulbert & Berghoff LLP on 3/17/2016

Are communications between a patent agent and a client privileged? Up until last week, the Federal Circuit had not addressed the subject, although there had been a split with the district courts that had considered the...more

The Federal Circuit Newly Recognizes Patent-Agent Privilege

Mintz - Intellectual Property Viewpoints on 3/14/2016

On March 7, 2016, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit recognized “a patent-agent privilege extending to communications with non-attorney patent agents when those agents are acting within the agent’s authorized...more

Patents › Patent Agent Privilege › Discovery