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).