In what was deemed "an issue of first impression for this
court and one that has split the district courts," the Federal
Circuit granted mandamus in In re Queen's University at
Kingston, No. 2015-145 (Fed. Cir. Mar. 7, 2016), to resolve
the following question: "whether a patent-agent privilege
exists." Slip op. at 6-7. The majority found that such a
privilege does exist, but with important limitations.
During the course of discovery in a patent infringement suit in
the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas,
Petitioner Queen's University withheld certain communications
with its registered nonattorney patent agents. It created privilege
logs listing these communications, but asserted that a
"patent-agent privilege" applied and refused to produce
these documents to defendants Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., and
Samsung Electronics America, Inc. (collectively,
"Samsung").
Samsung moved before Magistrate Judge Pay
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