Since no good deed goes unpunished, data on the costs of patent services “create a false floor”

Foolish me. Here I naively thought that excellent empirical data on what law firms charge for patent-related services would help inside IP lawyers. Wrong (See my post of Oct. 14, 2010: AIPLA’s historical data “gives legal departments an enormous advantage”.)!

Having singled out the AIPLA data I praised, the author of a piece in the ACC Docket, Oct. 2010 at 33 fulminates about its dark side. “From the client’s point of view, these statistics create a false floor for expense, because the price tag is based on what other firms have charged other clients.” The point, I believe, is that even lower charges can be had if the client isn’t hoodwinked by the “false floor” of the data. My point would be that a client doesn’t have to pay what the benchmark figures say, and clients are certainly much better off than negotiating in complete ignorance of market charges.