A state appeals court has rejected a genetic-testing device company’s legal malpractice claim against a Manhattan law firm lodged after the company missed a patent application deadline for a new type of genetic testing it says could’ve been worth tens of millions of dollars on the commercial market.

The Appellate Division, First Department court has ruled that plaintiff Morgan & Mendel Genomics failed to set out “a cognizable cause of action for legal malpractice” in its 2020 amended complaint, in part because under the facts of the case, the defendant law firm, Amster Rothsteon & Ebenstein, did not have a duty to independently investigate whether there were any prior articles or publications about the new genetic-testing technology that would’ve started tolling the time for filing a patent application with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

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