On February 20, 2013, the Supreme Court issued its decision (available here) in Gunn v. Minton. The long and the short of the decision is that legal malpractice cases involving allegations that attorneys botched patent infringement proceedings will have to be brought in state court (unless diversity jurisdiction exists):
[W]e are comfortable concluding that state legal malpractice claims based on underlying patent matters will rarely, if ever, arise under federal patent law for purposes of §1338(a).
In the case at hand, the plaintiff (Minton) claimed his attorneys committed legal malpractice in a patent infringement case they handled for him. He filed suit in Texas state court. He lost on summary judgment. On appeal, in a display of chutzpah, Minton then argued that:
Because his legal malpractice claim was based on an alleged error in a patent case, it ‘aris[es] under’ federal patent law for purposes of 28 U. S. C. §1338(a). And because, under §1338(a), ‘[n]o State court shall have jurisdiction over any claim for relief arising under any Act of Congress relating to patents,’ the Texas court—where Minton had originally brought his malpractice claim—lacked subject matter jurisdiction to decide the case. Accordingly, Minton argued, the trial court’s order should be vacated and the case dismissed, leaving Minton free to start over in the Federal District Court.
Not the best set of facts to argue a case on and, not surprisingly, the Supreme Court rejected this argument.