Parus files malpractice suit against law firm Mintz Levin

Parus files malpractice suit against law firm Mintz Levin

A legal feud between Parus and Mintz Levin has been intensified by the suit which comes days after Mintz sued Parus in Massachusetts federal court.

Parus, a voice recognition technology company, has filed a malpractice lawsuit against law firm Mintz Levin, alleging that professional negligence on the part of the firm led to invalidation of a key patent and loss of potentially hundreds of millions of dollars.

Parus filed the suit in federal court in Texas, alleging that Mintz Levin mismanaged patent-related matters before the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board.

A legal feud between Parus and Mintz Levin has been intensified by the suit which comes days after Mintz sued Parus in Massachusetts federal court.

In the earlier case, Mintz defended its work for Parus and said that over $2 million is owed to it as “success fee” for patent-related legal work that generated monetary recovery of $11.5 million.

A lawyer for Parus said that the company would not comment beyond its statements in the lawsuit. Mintz and two of its partners named as defendants in the malpractice reportedly did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Mintz represented Parus, based out of Austin, in a series of lawsuits in federal court in 2019 that accused major U.S. technology companies of patent infringement. The rulings mostly invalidated one of its key patents covering technology enabling voice-based internet searches; Parus said.

Founded in 1997, Parus said it sells technology that allows users to search the Internet with their voice and receive audible results.

According to the lawsuit, Mintz helped Parus develop a “monetization program” that would bring patent enforcement actions in federal court.

According to Parus, Mintz’s damages model projected it could recover more than $1 billion in judgments and licensing fees, and hundreds of millions of dollars more from future litigation. The lawsuit alleges that Mintz attorneys violated rules at the patent board that govern the filing of briefs. Parus said that Mintz’s briefs failed to point to evidence with specificity. According to the lawsuit, Mintz’s legal work was “shoddy, substandard, and violated both well-known and explicit rules”.

In 2023, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit upheld the patent board’s decisions against Parus.

The case is Parus Holdings Inc v. Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky & Popeo et al, U.S. District Court, Western District of Texas, No. 1:25-cv-01722.

Michael Mihm of Ogborn Mihm appeared for the plaintiff while there have been no appearances yet for the defendant.