Oops is this the same guy?

Two inventors of snowboard bindings accuse their lawyers at Seyfarth Shaw and Burnett, Burnett & Allen of doing a legal face plant that caused them to lose a patent infringement case.

In a lawsuit filed in Santa Clara County, Calif., Superior Court last month, Richard and Brandt Berger accuse the lawyers of negligence and fraud and claim to have suffered damages of more than $75 million. On Wednesday, the suit was removed to the Northern District of California, following rulings by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Monday on the appropriate jurisdiction for IP malpractice claims.

The plaintiffs allege that IP veteran Jack Slobodin, a former Seyfarth partner, provided the court with a "fatally defective" claim chart prepared by his firm, then blamed the mistake on an attorney "that was handling it before" him. In February -- one month after the patent case in question, Berger v. Rossignol, finished up -- Slobodin left Seyfarth to join Gordon & Rees as of counsel.

A Seyfarth spokesman said Slobodin left of his own accord, but declined to comment on the suit. Lawyers for Seyfarth and Slobodin from Keker & Van Nest also declined to comment on the case.

But in a demurrer, Seyfarth's lawyers called the suit "distressingly similar to Joseph Heller's novel Catch 22." Similarities to the book weren't cited, but the document claims "the allegations against Seyfarth [are] muddled, and, when analyzed with care, the chronology of the complaint makes no sense and renders the underlying story incoherent."

The Bergers contend they talked with Slobodin in 2003 about working on the patent infringement case against Rossignol Ski Co., which began marketing its own "tool-less rotatable" snowboard binding a year after they'd patented theirs. At the time, Slobodin sent a memo to the chairman of Seyfarth's IP practice group stressing that "if Rossignol is interested in settlement, we [Seyfarth Shaw] can make a relatively large fee without putting too much into the case," the suit alleges.

The infringement suit was filed in 2005 with the help of San Jose, Calif., attorney Douglas Allen of Burnett, Burnett & Allen. Seyfarth provided Allen with a claim chart for the binding, but the Bergers say that the chart -- which was to detail each point of the alleged infringement -- was erroneous.

The suit alleges that Slobodin acknowledged the error and filed a motion to amend the disclosure of asserted claims. But he didn't tell the court that the error was made by his own firm, the lawsuit alleges. As a result of the error, the suit claims, Rossignol filed for summary judgment, which was granted.

A subsequent appeal was denied in January of this year, and the Bergers filed the malpractice suit seven months after they received a bill from Seyfarth that totaled $341,350.77.

Lawyers for Seyfarth say the suit fails to prove that the firm had an attorney-client relationship with the Bergers at the time the chart was prepared; Seyfarth first appeared in court for the patent holders more than two months later. They also argue that the claim for fraud "makes no sense," and that punitive damages therefore shouldn't be considered.

Seyfarth side has yet file an answer to the complaint; the deadline to file a motion to dismiss is this Wednesday.

Moving the case to district court takes advantage of rulings by the Federal Circuit that have held that federal courts have jurisdiction over state-law legal malpractice claims where patent law is a necessary element of malpractice. Such claims were previously handled in state courts.

IP lawyers say the new ruling could affect the way this and other malpractice cases are handled.

Speaking generally, Cydney Tune, an IP counsel at Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman, said, "There could be ramifications from that, because in general litigants are more reluctant to go to federal court than state court -- the whole process is larger, more intimidating and more expensive."

A lawyer for the Bergers said that the change of venue won't cause the case to falter. "I had every confidence that the case would go forward in state court and I have every confidence it will go forward in federal court," said Justin Beck, a partner at San Jose's Beck, Ross, Bismonte & Finley.

Slobodin did not return phone calls seeking comment. Allen also didn't return calls.

The case is Berger et al v. Seyfarth Shaw, LLP et al., 5:07-cv-05279-PVT.