In Igen, Inc. v. White (250 AD2d 463 [1st Dept 1998] the plaintiff sought to recover damages on a patent that lacked any commercial value when plaintiff commenced its legal malpractice action. The Court noted: "While conceding in its moving papers, submitted in 1996, that its patent presently lacked any commercial value, plaintiff nevertheless seeks to recover from defendants the amount its process might be worth by the year 2004 or 2009 on the basis of an act of attorney malpractice alleged to have been committed in 1985" (Igen at 465). The Court went on to dismiss the legal malpractice cause of action on the following ground: "Nominal damages, to vindicate a technical right, cannot be recovered in a negligence action, where no actual loss has occurred. The threat of future harm, not yet realized, is not enough" (id.)