Case Study

The Litman Method™ in Practice

Litman v. Goldberg — NY Civil Rights Law §§ 50–51
Index No. 524343/2025 | NY Sup. Ct., Kings County

A patent attorney's name appeared on 905 United States patents and a law firm website for five years after his departure — without his knowledge or consent. Traditional litigation would require years of manual document review across tens of thousands of records. The Litman Method reduced this to a structured, data-driven evidence framework that identified 906 discrete statutory violations, traced every instance to a single individual's personal actions, and produced a complete trial-ready package in weeks.

Section I

The Challenge

A right-of-publicity case buried under a mountain of federal records, financial data, and digital communications.

Scale of Unauthorized Use

Plaintiff's name appeared on 905 patent publications in the USPTO database — each a separate commercial use under NY Civil Rights Law § 51. The scope was unknown at the outset.

Denied Causation

Defendant admitted the name appeared on patents and the firm website, but denied "causing" any of the uses — requiring proof of a specific mechanism linking his personal actions to each publication.

Complex Evidence Web

Proof was scattered across USPTO filings, patent grant XML, OCR-only PDF signatures, trust ledgers, 276,899 emails, website archives, and arbitration records — with no single source of truth.

Traditional Approach Inadequate

Manual review of this evidence corpus would consume hundreds of attorney hours. The volume alone would delay the case past critical statute-of-limitations windows.

Section II

The Litman Method Applied

Five structured steps transformed scattered data into a quantifiable liability framework.

Step 1

CAPTURE

Built a Publication Ledger of 906 patent entries from USPTO bulk data
Collected 513 evidence documents across 16 exhibit groups
Processed 276,899 emails from firm archives and personal accounts
Extracted 11,243 email attachments for secondary analysis
Downloaded and OCR'd 30+ Powers of Attorney PDFs from USPTO file wrappers
Retrieved 21 complete IFW (Image File Wrapper) document sets via the USPTO API
Cataloged 283 iCloud photos from the plaintiff's phone (text messages, emails, patent pages)
Archived website snapshots from the Wayback Machine spanning 2022 through 2025

Step 2

CLASSIFY

Each patent classified by client (KFU, KSU, KISR, Kuwait University, UAEU, and 40+ others), timing (pre/post arbitration, SOL status), control party, and evidence strength
206 outgoing USPTO documents identified as separate "publications" under § 51
Source types categorized: patent front pages, IFW prosecution documents, firm website, Powers of Attorney, issue fee transmittals, assignment cover sheets, client communications
Financial records allocated to 857 of 906 patents (94.6% attribution rate)
640 post-arbitration patents flagged as highest-value evidence (70.6% of total)

Step 3

ELIMINATE CONSENT

Searched 276,899 emails: zero consent documents found
Identified 3 explicit non-consent communications from plaintiff (including: "does not include the right to use my name")
Analyzed the Combination Agreement word by word: zero provisions on personal name use, consent, goodwill, or POA authorization
Defendant's own Nunc Pro Tunc Assignment (USPTO Reel 007281, Frame 0821) states plaintiff "owns his name, signature, voice, image" — his own recorded document contradicts his consent defense
Defendant's BOP response characterized the name use as "purely as a courtesy" — destroying the contractual authorization defense

Step 4

AGGREGATE

905 unauthorized patent publications quantified and indexed
206 outgoing USPTO documents cataloged (each a separate statutory violation)
16 Powers of Attorney personally signed by defendant identified via OCR verification
640 publications occurring after arbitration decision (when defendant was on formal notice)
13 publications in the strongest statute-of-limitations window
$32.7M in trust receipts traced from plaintiff-originated clients
Per-patent damages model built across 4 scenarios ($2.68M – $13.4M)
8 interactive visualizations and analytics dashboards generated

Step 5

LEVERAGE

MSJ brief package drafted (5 points covering liability, dissemination, damages, single-publication rebuttal, and federal preemption rebuttal)
Motion to Deem RFAs Admitted prepared based on evasive responses
Bill of Particulars compiled with per-patent allocation detail
Deposition preparation materials: 12 topic areas, 49 exhibits, impeachment index
Settlement evidence presentation produced for mediation use
Admissions inventory compiled from 8 sources (Answer, Discovery, RFAs, BOP, Arbitration, Federal Case, Text Messages, Emails)
74-exhibit index organized across 16 groups, mapped to each element of the claim

Section III

Key Discoveries

Data-driven analysis uncovered findings that would have taken months to identify through traditional document review.

16 Personal POA Signatures

OCR analysis of USPTO file wrapper PDFs revealed that the defendant personally signed 16 of 21 Powers of Attorney — each appointing the firm's Customer Number while listing the plaintiff as attorney of record. This was the direct causal link the defendant denied under oath.

December 21, 2023 Dual Filing

On a single day, the defendant signed both the Power of Attorney and the patent assignment cover sheet for the same application — maximum personal involvement in a filing that resulted in the plaintiff's name appearing on the issued patent.

Attorney Name Switchover

Between January 14 and January 21, 2025, the defendant replaced the plaintiff's name with his own on all new patent records. 205 subsequent patents all list the defendant. This proves he controlled the name use the entire time and could have stopped it at any point.

$16.2M Accounting Gap

Cross-referencing the trust account report ($32.7M) against the defendant's own revenue workup ($16.5M) revealed systematic exclusion of major institutional client revenue — strengthening the unjust enrichment damages theory.

Self-Defeating Assignment Clause

The defendant's own recorded Nunc Pro Tunc Assignment at the USPTO states that the plaintiff "owns his name, signature, voice, image" — a document the defendant signed and filed, which directly contradicts his consent defense at trial.

Three Clients Drawn by Name

Email analysis identified three separate clients who independently stated they chose the firm because of the plaintiff's name and reputation — direct proof the name had commercial value and attracted business.

Email Account Elimination

Timeline analysis revealed that the plaintiff's firm email accounts were deleted on July 18, 2025 — one day after a litigation threat. The defendant acknowledged deletion but never restored access. Spoliation evidence with a clear retaliatory timeline.

Section V

Technology Deliverables

Every deliverable is designed for attorneys — no technical expertise required.

Interactive Evidence Dashboard

Browse all evidence by type, date, and relevance. Filter by legal element, exhibit group, or keyword.

Publication Ledger

Enriched 17-column dataset of every unauthorized publication: patent number, client, date, POA signatory, Line 74 text, SOL status, allocated revenue.

Written Consent Dashboard

Four-panel analytics proving the absence of consent across 276,899 emails, all contracts, all court filings, and all discovery responses.

Deadline Tracker

CPLR-integrated tracker with all court deadlines, discovery milestones, and motion filing windows.

Patent Deck Viewer

Per-patent document browser: view the POA, filing receipt, office actions, NOA, issue fee, and patent front page for any application in the evidence set.

Discovery Production Portal

252 Bates-numbered documents (LITMAN000001 through LITMAN001293) with inline viewer and search.

Financial Analysis Suite

Per-patent damages allocation, per-client revenue breakdown, trust account reconciliation, and 4-scenario damages model.

Litigation Analytics

Eight interactive visualizations: timeline heatmaps, POA signature analysis, SOL coverage, client concentration, post-arbitration volume, and more.

Searchable Email Database

276,899 records indexed for full-text search with Relativity-style coding, privilege tagging, and hot document flagging.

Complete Brief Package

MSJ brief (5 points), Bill of Particulars, deposition preparation (12 topics, 49 exhibits), admissions inventory, and settlement presentation.

Section VI

Case Status

Current litigation posture demonstrates the framework's effectiveness.

✓ Count V survived motion to dismiss — NY Civil Rights Law §§ 50–51 misappropriation claim is the sole surviving count after the court dismissed Counts I through IV on December 5, 2025.
✓ Defendant admitted name use under oath — Verified Answer paragraphs 32 and 72 admit plaintiff's name appeared on patent front pages and the firm website after June 15, 2020.
✓ All 10 affirmative defenses mapped to counter-evidence — Each defense paired with specific documentary evidence refuting it, including the defendant's own prior sworn statements and recorded documents.
✓ Judicial estoppel identified — Defendant argued in arbitration that the agreement terminated June 15, 2020, then claimed the same agreement authorizes continued name use in this proceeding. The arbitrator accepted his termination position.
✓ Defendant failed to appear for deposition — Three emails with Zoom credentials sent for February 24, 2026 deposition; defendant did not appear. Documented for sanctions consideration.
✓ MSJ framework prepared — Five-point motion for summary judgment brief, 74-exhibit index, and element-by-element proof matrix ready for filing upon discovery completion.
✓ Personal liability established under Turane v. MGN, LLC — 16 personally signed federal documents satisfy the LLC Law § 609 personal participation standard. Court cited Turane in its December 5 ruling.

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Most right-of-publicity cases fail because they are argued as narratives. The Litman Method reframes them as discrete, documented statutory violations — each one independently provable, each one independently actionable.

The Litman Method — Structured Evidence, Quantifiable Liability

This case proves the method: structured data collection transformed a complex intellectual property dispute into a quantifiable liability framework. What could have consumed years of manual review produced 906 documented violations, a complete damages model, and a trial-ready evidence package — with every exhibit traced back to its source and every element of the claim mapped to specific proof.