Intellectual Property Law

You'll recall that this exchange was reportedly captured on a voicemail inadvertently left on Jasmine Network's counsel's voicemail system by Marvell's attorneys:

Kaushik Banerjee (the engineer): Who do they think they're working with?
Matthew Gloss (the general counsel): They're f---ing amateurs.
Eric Janofsky (the patent lawyer): You gave me better news than I...
Gloss: Yeah, but you know the problem is so if they're dumping it into Tigo [presumably a code name for a Marvell chip], now that's a problem.
A few moments later...
Janofsky: No, if they gave it to us it is not a criminal problem.
Gloss: Yeah, but what did we induce, what did we solicit, what did we promise, what did we say?...
Janofsky: I don't think--it doesn't look--Sehat doesn't go to jail, obviously.
Gloss: Sehat doesn't go to jail. Manuel might go to jail; Manuel gets a black eye.
Gloss: Sure, a Marvell VP out there promising big option grants in proposed pending acquisitions if technology is transferred in advance...That's what's going on.
Janofsky: I don't see it going to a criminal level. I see it going to a severe civil, civil layer, but not...
Gloss: But still hits, would still hit the financial.

The ABA Journal is reporting that this trade secrets misappropriation case that relies partly on a general counsel?s mistaken voice mail message has been tossed after a late-hour dismissal motion argued a lack of standing.

Santa Clara, Calif., Superior Court Judge Thomas Edwards ruled yesterday that Jasmine Networks Inc. can?t sue Marvell Semiconductor Inc. for alleged stolen trade secrets because Jasmine sold the intellectual property in question.

The dismissal motion was filed by Marvell?s law firm, Latham & Watkins, nearly eight years after the case was first filed, the story says. Latham was hired after Quinn Emanuel Urquhart Oliver & Hedges was disqualified for a conflict in January, after handling the case for just three months. Other law firms that previously represented Marvell were Buchalter Nemer and, for a brief time, Fenwick & West.

Jasmine?s lawyers had argued the judge overseeing its bankruptcy ruled it had standing to pursue the trade secrets claim despite the sale of its intellectual property.

Jasmine's case relied in part on a tape of Marvell former general counsel Matthew Gloss, recorded when he failed to hang up after calling a Jasmine lawyer. Gloss kept talking to a Marvell engineer and an intellectual property lawyer in a conversation that touched on theft of trade secrets and the unlawful hiring of Jasmine engineers, according to a description in an appeals court ruling.

Marvell recently lost a motion seeking to keep the recording out of evidence, according to the Recorder.