Paul Goldstein's A PATENT LIE on NPR's All Things Considered

A Patently Thrilling Legal Drama

by Alan Cheuse
All Things Considered, July 16, 2008

A Patent Lie, the new novel by Paul Goldstein, trumps John Grisham's work in every way — character, setting, plot and the prose — and gives readers interested in the drama of a high-value legal case a great reward for their attention.

The protagonist is an intellectual property lawyer named Michael Seeley, a former alcoholic who has retreated from high-powered corporate law in New York City to his native Buffalo. When his only sibling, a medical adviser to a Northern California biotech firm, shows up at his office to hire him as main counsel for a federal patent law case — the former lead counsel has somewhat inconveniently committed suicide — Seeley puts his solitude and his doubts about the case behind him and flies West.

The case is timely and fascinating; it's all about patent infringement on an American company's AIDS vaccine by a huge European conglomerate. Seeley's preparation for the trial — and the trial itself — form the heart of the story. Goldstein narrates all this so skillfully — from jury selection to final judgment — that even novices at the law can understand it without the author having to sacrifice any of the complex chemistry of the case.

But this is more than just a story about procedure. Attorney Seeley is hardly cold-blooded; he fights back his thirst for alcohol and allows his sympathy to go to work when the former counsel's widow asks him to help prove that her husband was actually murdered. Seeley also succumbs to the attractions of a somewhat-reluctant potential witness, a beautiful Chinese scientist whose work on the AIDS vaccine eventually takes center stage in the development of the plot.

There's no stopping Seeley when it comes to following his passion for this case's intricate truths, and there's no stopping the reader either. I read the book in nearly one sitting on a recent cross-country flight. I wished the flight had been longer.

For the full article and an excerpt from the novel, click here.

Paul Goldstein's A PATENT LIE in Washington Post BookWorld

FLAWED REPRESENTATION

By Patrick Anderson,
whose e-mail address is mondaythrillers@aol.com
Monday, June 16, 2008; p.C08

A PATENT LIE
By Paul Goldstein

Doubleday. 293 pp. $24.95

Michael Seeley, the intellectual property lawyer at the center of this legal thriller, is down on his luck when we meet him. Seeley grew up in Buffalo, the son of a drunken lout who beat him and his younger brother, but he made his way to Harvard Law School and then to a fast-track firm in Manhattan. He won some celebrated cases, but drink brought him down. One day, blotto, he called a judge a pompous toad to his face and was nearly disbarred. He returned to Buffalo and embraced the joys of sobriety and a solo law practice. This novel starts when his younger brother, Leonard, whom he hasn't seen in nine years, arrives to make Seeley an offer he can't refuse.

Leonard is the chief medical officer for Vaxtek, a mid-size biotech company in San Francisco. Vaxtek, he explains, has developed and patented the most effective AIDS vaccine yet devised. But now his company is suing St. Gall, a giant Swiss drug producer, for infringing its patent. The trial starts in three weeks, billions of dollars are at stake, and Leonard wants his brother to be Vaxtek's lead lawyer. Seeley asks the obvious question: Why, at this late date, don't you have a lawyer? He died, his brother says. How? "He threw himself in front of a train." At that point, veteran thriller fans will suspect that Seeley risks leaving more than his heart in San Francisco if he takes this case, which of course he does.

Seeley is greeted by suspicion and hostility at Vaxtek, and he begins to fear there is something profoundly wrong about the case. He distrusts his star witness, the Vaxtek scientist who claims to have invented the vaccine. When the trial begins, Seeley is pitted against a canny old lawyer named Emil Thorpe as well as a glamorous but tough-minded judge, Ellen Farnsworth. The author, Paul Goldstein, is a professor at Stanford Law School and an authority on intellectual property law, and among the novel's pleasures are his insights into lawyers and the games they play.

Here, for example, he reflects on the sexy judge: "Federal judges are usually smarter and more able than most of the lawyers who come before them and, with their lifetime tenure, possess a detachment not unlike the composure of a beautiful woman who knows the effect that her good looks have on men. Judge Farnsworth had both." Elsewhere, the sly old lawyer Thorpe, who adopts a melancholy mien in court, lightens up for a moment, whereupon: "Having now seen the phantom of a smile from this austere, sorrowful man, the jurors would work to please him if that was the price to see him smile once more."

For the full article, click here.

Paul Goldstein's A Patent Lie in Publishers Weekly

Publishers Weekly, Week of 4/21/08
A Patent Lie
Paul Goldstein. Doubleday, $24.95 (288p) ISBN 978-0-385-51718-8

Goldstein, a Stanford law professor and intellectual property expert, delivers on the promise of his thriller debut, Errors and Omissions (2006), with this outstanding sequel. Michael Seeley, who's living in seclusion in Buffalo, N.Y., agrees at his estranged brother's urging to travel to San Francisco to take on a patent infringement case that Vaxtek, a small company, is bringing against St. Gall, a Swiss pharmaceutical giant, over an AIDS vaccine. Robert Pearsall, the lead plaintiff's attorney, apparently committed suicide on the eve of trial. Surprised that Pearsall, known for his meticulous preparation, didn't depose Lily Warren, a St. Gall employee who claimed to have invented the vaccine, Seeley pursues that loose end, only to find that Warren's version of events raises questions about not only Seeley's clients but also his predecessor's death. In lean prose, Goldstein masterfully portrays the intricate courtroom maneuvering and the ethical dilemmas of trial attorneys. Scott Turow fans will welcome this complex protagonist. (June)

For the rest of the reviews, click here.