Seyfarth Shaw. (Photo: Diego M. Radzinschi/ALM)Seyfarth Shaw Faces Legal Mal Suit Over Cleaning Method Patent
A Houston inventor alleged he lost control of a patent through a business deal, and is seeking up to $1 million in damages from the law firm and several other defendants.
December 11, 2019 at 06:05 PM
3 minute read
A Texas inventor is suing law firm Seyfarth Shaw, among other defendants, alleging they caused him to lose control of a patent for a cleaning method for corrosive materials.
In a suit filed Wednesday, Loren Hatle is seeking up to $1 million in damages from the defendants, which also include former Seyfarth Shaw partner Cleve Glenn; Texas company Berkeley Research Group (BRT) and its Houston managing director Clifford Wright Jr.; Louisiana resident Randy LeBoeuf; and MicroClean Metals, of Camas, Washington.
Glenn, now a partner at Lewis Brisbois Bisgaard & Smith in Houston, declined to comment on the lawsuit. A spokesman for Seyfarth Shaw, an Am Law 100 firm based in Chicago, did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday.
Neither Wright nor LeBoeuf returned calls for comment. Attempts to locate contact information for MicroClean Metals in Washington were unsuccessful.
According to the petition, filed in the 333rd State District Court in Harris County, Hatle entered into a business arrangement in 2015 with LeBouef to launch a company that would make use of his patent—identified as the 310 patent—for a method to remove contaminants and other corrosive materials from concrete, metal and other surfaces.
That company "never got off the ground," Hatle alleged in the petition, so he engaged BRT in 2016 for strategic consulting on how to launch product sales worldwide. According to the petition, Wright was engaged to lead the consulting services.
"In a series of events that followed that were advanced by the concerted efforts of Wright, LeBoeuf and Glenn, Hatle would unknowingly sign over all of his rights and relinquish control to the 310 Patent to companies run by Wright," the petition alleged.
Hatle alleged that Wright, LeBoeuf and Glenn "devised a fraudulent scheme" in which MicroClean—a company Glenn formed in 2016 on behalf of Wright—ended up with rights to the 310 patent.
Hatle alleged he severed ties with MicroClean and filed a new patent application that "contains different and distinct technology" from the 310 patent. But he asserts that LeBoeuf attempted to "highjack" that technology by filing a patent application in August.
Hatle's suit includes a legal malpractice cause of action against Seyfarth Shaw and Glenn, along with breach of fiduciary duty, fraud by nondisclosure, and aiding and abetting. He also alleged they violated the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act.
He also brings fraudulent inducement, civil conspiracy and aiding and abetting causes of action against Glenn, Wright and LeBoeuf, and numerous causes of action against the business defendants.
Tamara Stiner Toomer, a lawyer at Johnsen Law in Humble who represents Hatle, could not be immediately reached for comment.
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