Electronic Discovery Software Delivers Huge Award In Patent Suit

A California law firm is crediting its use of electronic discovery software for assisting in the review of nearly 50 million pages of documents resulting in one of the largest patent awards of the year.

Jeffer, Mangels, Butler & Marmaro (JMBM), the law firm with offices in San Francisco and Los Angeles, used Attenex Patterns software from Attenex Corp., Seattle, to expedite its review of the documents and found the incriminating evidence it needed in the case of Dr. Gary K. Michelson against Medtronic Sofamor Danek Inc. The total verdict is valued at $560 million, including $400 million in punitive damages.

Michelson, a spinal surgeon and inventor, charged that Medtronic breached purchase and license agreements and infringed patents owned by Michelson. The suit involved more than 20 claims and JMBM had four months to review 50 million pages of documents.

JMBM turned to electronic discovery and litigation support services provider Forensics Consulting Solutions Inc., which recommended the Attenex software. The law firm was able to locate the documents it needed, including a spreadsheet that revealed the intent behind Medtronic's dealings with Michelson and became a focal point of the trial.

"Attenex Patterns demonstrated immediate benefits within only a few weeks by significantly reducing the amount of reviewable material and isolating the key documents," said Dan Sedor, a JMBM partner, in a prepared statement. "Attenex Patterns enabled us to quickly gain a visual understanding of the entire review corpus, displaying how the documents relate to each other, as well as offering the ability to both find and browse the same documents using a key concept. Using Attenex Patterns, we uncovered electronic evidence in time to use it in numerous depositions, summary judgment motions, trial preparation and trial."

JMBM’s team used seven workstations networked on a secure server loaded with Attenex Patterns to review data in 1,000-document batches from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m., six days a week.