This is probably too minor to cover, but for those REALLY into the litigation, Cooley today noticed the addition of a new attorney to the team handling the case in the Central District of California: Barrett Anderson:
From Cooley's Website and LinkedIn we learn that Mr. Anderson is a top-notch associate who graduated from Yale Law School, clerked for the US Senate Judiciary Committee, then clerked for the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, then spent three years with exclusive white collar crime DC firm Williams & Connolly, before joining Cooley last May.
This is a stunning resume; Williams & Connolly is considered even more selective than Wachtell Lipton, if that were even possible, and Mr. Anderson's two clerkships are exceedingly prestigious, too.
I am the last one to bow before legal nobility -- for all I know they are using their powers over at Williams & Connolly to represent Oliver North in Iran Contra and to defend Enron's law firm. But even at Cooley, this guy would appear to be a whiz kid.
So what's he doing on our case?
Possibly nothing -- maybe they are just rotating somebody through.
More likely, they need an extra pair of hands, which means that Discovery is getting busy, settlement talks are dormant, and they are contemplating the risk of actually going to trial later this year.
But what if...Is there a very small outside chance, an almost negligible possibility that Mr. Anderson was brought in as a domain expert?
From Cooley's website:
Barrett Anderson litigates a wide variety of trial and appellate matters in different federal and state forums, including cases involving securities, commercial contract disputes, patent and trademark infringement, false advertising and deceptive business practices claims, constitutional and statutory interpretation, civil RICO claims and criminal law.
Cooley is handling both the New York and the California litigation -- in fact, the same partner, Tony Stiegler, has been signing the briefs in both cases.
But what if that "nefariously conceived plan to damage and/or steal ChromaDex's NR, reputation, employees, goodwill, and stature in the industry," which ChromaDex described in the New York litigation, involved some of the same issue that Barrett Anderson likes to work on, like "securities, patent and trademark infringement, false advertising and deceptive business practices, civil RICO claims and criminal law"?
An overactive imagination could really run wild.