Christine Meis McAuliffe

We spent nearly 6 years and tens of thousands of dollars in attempt to secure a patent while employing Christine Meis McAuliffe as our attorney. Our patent was denied due to the fact there are several of the same patent ideas already in existence, some going back decades. We wonder now if she even ...googled it? She suggested at one stage we move ahead with only the provisional patent. She recommended potential investors and manufacturers who could produce our product under "patent pending" status. She even provided contact names and phone numbers. We feel very fortunate we decided against her advise as we imagine how vulnerable it would have made us for legal suits. In the end she did not have the common courtesy to tell us herself our patent had been denied. We were notified by her new assistant and at the same time were told Christine would no longer be representing us or available for advice. Christine changed law firms several times and we stuck with her every time. She also made several huge mistakes, for example, she mailed to us another clients confidential documents. She is lucky we are fair, decent, honest people because that could have turned into a hornets nest for her career and opened her up for potential lawsuits. After Christine disappeared we were assigned a different attorney with whom we met in person. He was at least honest by stating he was not comfortable enough with our product idea and then admitted he may not be the best patent attorney for our needs. We asked if he could help us find a new attorney and he agreed - that was several weeks ago with still no word. In the meantime. our window of opportunity for response to the USPTO decision has expired. At the same time we received a $3000 bill for fees and services we did not give prior approval on, nor did we understand these charges. There had been no activity with our account at the USPTO. Even though there is not much we can do to stop deceptive, unprofessional patent attorneys from practicing law, we hope by posting our complaints here we can save other people from a horrible experience. Please think twice before retaining Christine or any of her affiliates for your legal needs.