Irell Lawyers Face Sanctions for Using Doctored Patent Document

An East Texas federal court’s special investigator recommended sanctions against Irell & Manella based on the actions of two patent litigators, one of whom used a “doctored document” while deposing a witness for defendant Samsung Electronics Co. over the document’s provenance.

An associate at the firm handled the Sept. 27 deposition of Roland Saint-Pierre an executive at high-tech components maker Power Integrations Inc., a firm aligned with Samsung in the patent dispute. The attorney quizzed Saint-Pierre about schematics for a device Samsung argues predates—and thus invalidates—patents the tech giant is accused of infringing by Malvern, Penn., tech company, CogniPower LLC. ...