Oral Argument from Sperry v. Florida ex rel. Florida Bar

The Federal Circuit’s recent decision in In re Queen’s University deals with whether patent agent/client communications are privileged.  The Federal Circuit leans heavily on the US Supreme Court case  Sperry v. Florida ex real. Florida Bar to find that there is such a privilege.

The Oyez site has done a great job of making the oral arguments from the Supreme Court cases available for listening.  The playback of the oral arguments even shows a portrait of each justice when that particular justice speaks during playback.  At any rate, you can listen to the oral argument of the Sperry case via the Oyez site [here].

In footnote 2 of the dissent in In re Queen’s University, the dissent seems to dismiss the importance of the issue since no amicus briefs were filed in the case.  For what it’s worth, I consider myself pretty well apprised of what is going on in the patent world and I was not aware of the case until it was recently decided.  Moreover, the Office of Enrollment and Discipline shows that patent agents account for roughly 1/4 of all practitioners registered to practice before the USPTO:

Currently, there are 11045 active agents and 33133 active attorneys.

See https://oedci.uspto.gov/OEDCI/practitionerhome.jsp (last visited on 3/15/2016).

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