On March 30, 2022, the Honorable Katherine Polk Failla issued an order siding with Ross LLP and denying an attempt by AT&T to disqualify Ross LLP attorneys and their co-counsel at Cadwell, Clonts & Reeder LLP (now Cadwell, Clonts, Reeder & Thomas LLP) from representing the plaintiffs in significant patent litigation pending in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.
Peter W. Ross and Richard A. Schwartz are lead counsel representing Network Apps, LLC, John Wantz, and Kyle Schei in litigation alleging that AT&T and its subsidiaries and affiliates breached contracts with the plaintiffs and infringed plaintiffs' patent over "twinning" technology that enables callers to dial the same phone number and reach a multitude of potential devices on the other end.
The AT&T defendants, represented by attorneys from Paul Hastings LLP, had sought to disqualify Ross LLP and co-counsel by virtue of patent counsel's years-prior representation of AT&T in unrelated matters.
Law360 covered the decision denying disqualification in an article entitled AT&T Can't DQ Ex-BigLaw Attorneys From $425m IP Case. Richard A. Schwartz was quoted as saying:
“We were confident that our colleagues at Cadwell, Clonts & Reeder had done nothing to warrant disqualification and that AT&T’s motion would be denied.”
The redacted opinion will be posted here once the Court adopts a public version.
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