Issues of intellectual property in the film business are always tricky, particularly when one writer accuses another of stealing an idea or a movie plot, an accusation that can be difficult to prove legally. But claims of idea theft are way up in Hollywood these days, and a lot of the blame (or credit) for the uptick can be laid at the feet of a single lawyer, who has “spent the last two years capitalizing on having won a federal appeals court decision that makes it easier for writers who pitch an idea or circulate a script to make a claim of theft stick.”