Ropes & Gray Slapped With Plagiarism Suit

A genetic research laboratory is seeking up to $82.5 million in compensatory and punitive damages from Ropes & Gray in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York. In the suit, Cold Springs Harbor Laboratory alleges they were denied a patent application because a partner at Ropes & Gray plagiarized language from a rival scientist.

According to the New York Law Journal, an internal investigation by Cold Springs into why the application was denied led them to find that 11 pages of the application produced by former Ropes & Gray partner Matthew Vincent was taken directly and without attribution from one filed by Andrew Fire, a Nobel Prize winner in medicine.

Ropes & Gray filed a motion to dismiss on Tuesday, citing the fact it is common practice to copy text from other patents.

“Cold Springs Harbor Laboratory’s lawsuit lacks merit because the determination of the (Patent and Trademark Office) to reject the patent applications is based on the existence of prior work with other respected scientists and not on our firm’s efforts,” the firm said in a statement.

Vincent was fired by Ropes & Gray last year, according to the NYLJ, for allegedly owning a secret patent database company that billed the firm and its clients for more than $730,000.

Ropes & Gray has over 1,000 lawyers with offices in Boston, Chicago, Hong Kong, London, New York, San Francisco, Silicon Valley, Tokyo and Washington D.C.