Eli’s Coming

A former Eli Lilly attorney was suspended for 90 days by the Indiana Supreme Court for taking confidential materials with him when he left.

 Respondent has been an attorney since 1993 and was admitted as a patent attorney by the United States Patent and Trademark Office in 2000. Respondent was employed by Eli Lilly and Company (“Lilly”) from 1999 through 2009. Respondent had a duty to protect Lilly’s intellectual property and preserve Lilly’s confidences. In 2009, as Respondent prepared to leave his employment with Lilly, he copied documents and forms onto a disk. A Lilly administrative assistant made a copy of the disc and gave both discs to Respondent. The information on the discs (“CD Data”) was property of Lilly and was considered by Lilly to be confidential. Respondent took the CD Data from Lilly’s premises and retained it, knowing that he was not authorized to possess or control the CD Data after he left Lilly.

 As to sanction

 The parties cite the following fact in aggravation: Respondent was aware that the duty of a patent lawyer is to protect the intellectual property of the client. The parties cite the following facts in mitigation: (1) Respondent has no disciplinary history; (2) Respondent was cooperative with both Lilly and the Commission in their investigations; (3) Respondent had no intent to harm the client; (4) he returned the CD Data to Lilly upon request and did not intend to share it with third parties; (5) Respondent believes that the information regarding Lilly’s products on the discs was either already in the public domain or would become public in the near future; (6) Respondent has expressed that the breach of his employment agreement was not intentional, yet he takes full responsibility for and regrets his actions; and (7) Respondent’s misconduct resulted in the revocation of a substantial severance payment from Lilly.

(Mike Frisch)