What boobs!
A white-shoe law firm botched the handling of a patent for a bust-enlarging bra insert, allowing competitors to market knockoffs, a new Manhattan lawsuit charges.
Lingerie company Zephyrs, which invented the “novel kidney-shaped push-up” padding, is suing its former lawyer, Bernard Codd, from the international firm McDermott, Will & Emery for nearly $6 million.
The Manhattan Supreme Court malpractice suit says McDermott, Will & Emery “fell far short of its reputation” as a “top-tier, highly recommended law firm for drafting and filing patents.”
In 2008, Zephyrs chief Debra MacKinnon “discovered that there existed a commercial need for a soft shaping insert that is anatomically designed to conform and push up the breasts, thereby increasing volume and cleavage, while providing a natural shape,” the entrepreneur says in the suit.
Codd worked with MacKinnon in 2008 and 2009 to draft the patent claim, but he rushed the job and screwed up the wording about the inserts’ specific dimensions, according to court papers.
The patent was issued in 2012. In 2014 MacKinnon hired an independent consultant “who discovered that there were substantial errors contained within the patent as a direct result of defective legal services,” the suit says.
Specifically, Codd wrote the ratio of the thickness of the pad from the breast to the bra, and the length of the insert from the sternum to the armpit backward, according to court papers.
Codd made the mistake even though MacKinnon had provided him with a diagram accurately depicting the product, the suit says.
The “small, woman-owned company” has been working with a new firm to fix the screw-up — while giant retailers like Amazon.com and Victoria’s Secret are selling nearly identical pads for between $17 and $58 a pair, the suit says.
“Zephyrs has experienced serious harm from its inability to collect royalties under the patent as a direct and proximate consequence of the defendants’ acts and omissions,” MacKinnon charges in the civil suit.
MacKinnon says in court papers that she hired the $860-an-hour firm because she was “understandably impressed with McDermott’s substantial accolades and vast experience in patent prosecution.”
“Instead” she “received inferior legal services that fell below the degree of care, skill, and diligence commonly possessed and exercised by a member of the legal community,” MacKinnon huffs in the suit.
A spokesman for McDermott, Will & Emergy said, “It is unfortunate that Zephyrs has filed this lawsuit, but we are confident that the firm will prevail.”