PTO Sanction Leads To Massachusetts Disbarment

A sanction from the United States Patent and Trademark Office drew reciprocal disbarment by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court

The respondent, Morton Chirnomas, is an attorney duly admitted to the Bar of the Commonwealth on August 14, 2003. He was also admitted to practice before the United States Patent and Trademark Office (“USPTO”). On November 18, 2021, the Supreme Judicial Court reciprocally disbarred the respondent from the practice of law in Massachusetts, on the basis of an Order of the USPTO, excluding the respondent from practice before that body.

The USPTO’s order found that the respondent, after filing a patent application on behalf of his client, had violated rules of professional conduct governing attorneys who appear before the USPTO. The respondent, inter alia, failed to pay his client’s Basic National Fee, failed to respond to and notify his client about the USPTO’s Notification of Abandonment of the application, failed to respond to his client’s inquiries about the status of the application, failed to hold the client’s filing fees in a client trust account, failed to refund his client’s funds, and failed to cooperate with the Office of Enrollment and Discipline’s investigation of his conduct.

(Mike Frisch)