Parallel patent and trade secret proceedings in surgical robotics

The claimant asserted seven patents covering instrument articulation and force feedback, together with a trade secret claim arising from the client's hire of three engineers four years earlier.

The client's commercial position was more constrained than its legal position. It supplied two of the claimant's largest customers and had no interest in an outcome that removed the claimant from the market.

Our first month was spent on the instrument rather than the pleadings. Working with the client's engineers, we characterized the actual control behavior during articulation and established that the accused system resolved force feedback in a sequence the asserted claims did not describe.

That analysis narrowed the case. Four patents fell away on non-infringement at an early stage; two were subject to validity challenges that the claimant did not defend.

On the trade secret claim, forensic review of the three engineers' devices and repositories established no transfer of material, and we produced that analysis voluntarily and early rather than resisting the request.

Throughout, we kept a settlement structure on the table that reflected the commercial relationship: a cross-license with a supply commitment, which was where the matter was always most likely to end.

The proceedings resolved before trial through a cross-license and a five-year supply arrangement, on terms that preserved the client's customer relationships.

The client adopted a documented onboarding procedure for engineering hires from competitors, which the firm drafted and reviews annually.