A patent lie

the long version

Michael Seeley, the tough-but-wounded hero of Errors and omissions, has resigned from his high-powered Manhattan law firm to work as a sole practitioner in Buffalo. Business is slow, so when his estranged brother, Leonard, a doctor, flies in from California to beg him to take on a suit for patent infringement on an AIDS vaccine, Michael is in little position to say no. He agrees to take the case, replacing the former lead lawyer who apparently committed suicide. Trading the dismal climes of Buffalo for the sun-kissed landscape of Silicon Valley, Seeley soon finds out the financial stakes are so staggering that murder can scarcely be ruled out as a hardball tactic.