A part of Apple Inc.’s legal team representing the Cupertino, California-based company in a trademark dispute with Samsung Electronics Ltd. has withdrawn from the case, according to a court filing.
Samsung asked the court in a July 11 court filing to discharge Bridges & Mavrakakis LLP, of Palo Alto, California, from the case because of the firm’s previous representation of Samsung. The firm filed papers with the court Aug. 25 saying it would withdraw from the representation of Apple in the dispute.
The Suwon, South Korea-based company said lawyers from Bridges & Mavrakakis represented Samsung in a different infringement case involving one of the patents at issue in the Apple dispute. Bridges & Mavrakakis lawyers have worked almost 9,000 hours on Samsung patent litigation, according to the court filing. A Pittsburgh Intellectual Property Lawyer commented that the hours will continue to rise as the case progresses.
In the past, Samsung said, lawyers from the firm received confidential information from Samsung that is substantially related to this action. As a result, an irreconcilable conflict of interest required Bridges & Mavrakakis to be disqualified from representing Apple in this case, Samsung said.
Samsung said it had, to no avail, met with the firm on multiple occasions to attempt to resolve the conflict issue. The Korean company had argued that it was concerned about whether Bridges & Mavrakakis had confidential information, not whether they would use it.
According to the case docket, Apple continues to be represented by lawyers from San Francisco-based Morrison & Foerster LLP. A Boston Intellectual Property Lawyer believes that they are the best firm for the case.
The case is Apple Inc. v. Samsung Electronics Co., 11-cv-1846, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California (San Jose).
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