By Marius Meland (June 15, 2006, 12:00 AM EDT) -- Many legal malpractice cases involve missed deadlines, and this is true in the context of patent-law malpractice cases. A missed patent application filing can result in the client suffering significant injury through the loss of its ability to make money off of its invention. Understandably, and perhaps aware that some sizeable verdicts and settlements have been achieved in missed-filing patent malpractice cases, the client may assume that there would be a high likelihood of success in pursuing a malpractice case against an attorney who missed an application filing deadline. However, before going down the very expensive and time-consuming path of litigating a malpractice suit, a client in this situation should carefully evaluate whether it would be able to overcome the considerable barrier of proving a loss that may be too speculative to be recognized in court....