U.S. law firm Winston & Strawn has reached a settlement in an unusual copyright lawsuit brought by a smaller firm, Hsuanyeh Law Group, alleging that Winston’s attorneys copied one of its court filings “nearly verbatim.” The settlement agreement was filed in New York federal court on Tuesday.
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Discontinuation by U.S. District Judge Denise Cote
U.S. District Judge Denise Cote discontinued the case after being informed by both parties that they had reached a settlement. Winston, a Chicago-founded law firm with close to 1,000 lawyers, and Hsuanyeh, a Boston-based patent law firm with six lawyers, were representing separate companies in patent lawsuits against Unification Technologies LLC over computer data storage technology. The cases from 2023 were consolidated and later settled.
Background of the Lawsuit
Hsuanyeh founder Hsuanyeh Chang filed a motion to dismiss the case against his client, Phison Electronics, in August. Following this, a Winston attorney praised the filing as “impressive.” However, the situation escalated when Winston filed a nearly identical version of the motion for its client, Silicon Motion, the next day. This action prompted Hsuanyeh to sue Winston and four of its attorneys in December, leading to a rare copyright infringement case over court filings.
Denial of Copyright Infringement
Winston responded to Hsuanyeh’s claims by asserting that no legal precedent supports the notion that copying a co-defendant’s motion constitutes copyright infringement. This defense was reiterated in a court filing last month.
Conclusion and Case Details
The case, titled Hsuanyeh Law Group PC v. Winston & Strawn LLP, was pending in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York under case number 1:23-cv-11193. Lance Liu represented Hsuanyeh Law Group in the lawsuit. While a lawyer for Hsuanyeh declined to comment on the settlement, Winston’s attorneys named in the case and their legal representative did not provide immediate comments or further details regarding the settlement agreement.