PPC Client Communication & Confidentiality Standards 2 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: A patent paralegal receives an email from a third party requesting information about a client's pending application. What is the proper response?
- Provide general status information only
- Decline to confirm or deny the existence of any client relationship
- Forward the request to the supervising attorney before responding (Correct answer)
- Direct the third party to the USPTO public database
Correct answer: Forward the request to the supervising attorney before responding
All third-party inquiries must be escalated to the supervising attorney, as the paralegal lacks authority to independently decide what information may be disclosed.
Question 2: Which doctrine protects confidential communications between a client and their attorney made for the purpose of obtaining legal advice?
- Work product doctrine
- Attorney-client privilege (Correct answer)
- Common interest privilege
- Duty of confidentiality
Correct answer: Attorney-client privilege
Attorney-client privilege specifically protects confidential communications made between attorney and client for the purpose of seeking or providing legal advice.
Question 3: A client insists on communicating exclusively via personal text message for patent matters. How should a patent paralegal handle this?
- Accommodate the client's preference to maintain goodwill
- Explain firm policy and use secure, firm-approved communication channels (Correct answer)
- Allow it only for non-sensitive status updates
- Require all communications to be in person only
Correct answer: Explain firm policy and use secure, firm-approved communication channels
Paralegals must use firm-approved secure channels to protect client confidentiality, regardless of client preference.
Question 4: When a patent paralegal leaves a voicemail for a client regarding their application, what precaution is most important?
- Leave a detailed message including application numbers and filing dates
- Confirm the number belongs to the client before leaving detailed information (Correct answer)
- Always use the client's work number for efficiency
- Read back the full application title for accuracy
Correct answer: Confirm the number belongs to the client before leaving detailed information
Before leaving a message with any case details, the paralegal must verify the number is private to the client to avoid inadvertent disclosure.
Question 5: Under the common interest privilege, multiple clients may share communications without waiving privilege when:
- They share the same supervising attorney
- They have a common legal interest in pending or anticipated litigation (Correct answer)
- They are companies in the same industry
- They have signed a mutual NDA
Correct answer: They have a common legal interest in pending or anticipated litigation
The common interest privilege allows parties with a shared legal interest to exchange privileged communications without waiving attorney-client privilege.
Question 6: A former client contacts a patent paralegal to ask about strategy used in their expired patent case. The paralegal should:
- Freely discuss the matter since the patent has expired
- Discuss only publicly available information from the patent record
- Decline to discuss confidential strategy as the duty survives termination of representation (Correct answer)
- Refer the former client back to the attorney who handled the case
Correct answer: Decline to discuss confidential strategy as the duty survives termination of representation
The duty of confidentiality to former clients survives the end of the representation and covers all confidential information, not just active matters.
Question 7: A patent paralegal discovers that two current clients of the firm have directly competing patent applications in the same technology space. The first step is to:
- Continue working on both matters without disclosure
- Immediately inform the supervising attorney of the potential conflict (Correct answer)
- Advise both clients to settle their dispute directly
- Withdraw from both matters without explanation
Correct answer: Immediately inform the supervising attorney of the potential conflict
Identifying and promptly reporting potential conflicts of interest to the supervising attorney is the paralegal's primary obligation.
PPC Client Communication & Confidentiality Standards 2
A patent paralegal receives an email from a third party requesting information about a client's pending application.
What is the proper response?