Microsoft recently renewed a motion to sanction Ramey LLP, as prior counsel for plaintiff CTD Networks LLC in a case between them. In support of its renewed motion, Microsoft submitted a declaration from “in house counsel” for CTD Eric D. Morehouse, attesting that CTD “does not have sufficient assets to satisfy Microsoft’s full fee request” and that CTD never approved the filing of a “Second Amended Complaint”, which CTD instructed Ramey LLP to dismiss. Now, Ramey LLP has responded (for the third time)—by filing a Rule 11 version of a motion for sanctions against Microsoft, two of its attorneys, and Morehouse for submitting that Morehouse declaration to the court. In support, Ramey LLP has publicly filed, among other things: (1) heavily redacted documents that reveal the settlement amounts paid by other defendants in this campaign; (2) presumably privileged emails from Morehouse colleagues while Ramey LLP still represented CTD; (3) draft claim charts still bearing the attorney-client privilege designation; and (4) early 2024 communications in which Morehouse attempts (unsuccessfully) to secure the signature of William P. Ramey III on a draft declaration intended to allay Morehouse’s investor concerns triggered by earlier Ramey statements.

Northern District of California District Judge Jon S. Tigar has granted a request by Ramey LLP to withdraw from its representation of Lauri Valjakka in his case against Netflix, a request that Netflix opposed. The court found good cause to authorize withdrawal through the nonpayment of fees to Ramey LLP by Valjakka and by third party AiPi, LLC, fees now owed that Ramey LLP claims comes to more than $1.1M. Although permitted to withdraw, Ramey LLP may not have seen the last of this case.

Frequent patent plaintiff-side counsel Ramey LLP has taken in recent years to filing a certificate of interested parties in connection with cases regardless of whether local rules in the district in which they are filed require one. The recent implosion of Ramey LLP’s relationship with AiPi, prompting widespread Ramey LLP withdrawals and the repeated appearance of Whitestone Law, raised the question, would those certificates of interested parties, however questionable their accuracy, be ignored or amended. At least one Ramey-to-Whitestone campaign provides an answer.

This past November, District of Colorado Magistrate Judge N. Reid Neureiter ordered William P. Ramey III of Ramey LLP to show cause in writing “why he should not be referred to the Court’s Committee on Conduct for his neglectful behavior in this case, including his failure to appear at a scheduling conference and his failure to serve any discovery”. Ramey’s response was to address five specific pieces of information “relevant to the issues of whether Mr. Ramey and his firm are spread too thin to provide competent representation”. Ramey filed his response—the contents of which have pulled back the curtain on a broad patent monetization operation, including arguably improper legal work, numerous inaccurate certificates of interested parties, and third-party litigation funding lurking in the shadows.