By the late 2000s, the historical record had moved from invention, patent prosecution, development and commercialisation efforts toward consideration of possible enforcement of Baker's patent rights. This section preserves the record of Richard Baker's efforts to obtain legal representation before he ultimately proceeded without retained litigation counsel.
The principal document retained for this section is Richard Baker Efforts to Seek Legal Representation 2009-13. It records attempts beginning around 2009 to locate lawyers or firms willing to consider the patent matter on a contingency-fee or comparable basis.
The significance of the document is procedural and historical. It is not presented as evidence of infringement and it does not establish the merits of any later legal claim. Its purpose is to document the steps taken to obtain professional representation during the period preceding the Baker v. Microsoft et al. litigation.
The FINALSTEP archive distinguishes between evidence concerning the technology and evidence concerning the history of the dispute. The representation record belongs to the latter category.
Patent litigation can involve substantial technical, procedural and financial demands. The surviving record of attempts to obtain representation provides context for how the later proceedings developed, without asking the archive to draw conclusions about why individual lawyers or firms did or did not accept the matter.
The period documented in this section overlaps with increasing attention to later commercial systems and patent activity. The next section begins an important official documentary sequence concerning Microsoft's Gesture Coach patent prosecution.
In 2011, Litman Law Offices submitted Baker patent material to the United States Patent and Trademark Office under the then-existing Rule 99 procedure during prosecution of Microsoft's Gesture Coach application. That filing begins the next major documentary stage of the archive.
From this point forward, FINALSTEP increasingly relies upon original USPTO records, prosecution documents, service records, court filings and other primary documents so readers can examine the chronology directly.
Richard Baker - Efforts to Seek Legal Representation, approximately 2009-2013
The private FINALSTEP archive preserves Baker's two-page record of his efforts to obtain contingency-fee or comparable professional support for proposed U.S. patent litigation. It records approaches to numerous U.S., Australian and U.K. law firms and litigation-funding organisations over approximately 2009-2013, varied responses and periods of review, and that representation was ultimately not secured.
Historical source retained in the private FINALSTEP archive.
Archive note: The public site summarises the record rather than reproducing the complete list of organisations approached. The record is preserved as evidence of Baker's efforts to obtain representation; it is not presented as evidence of infringement or as proof of the merits of the later claims.