While our firm is small, our patent litigation law practice group rivals that of many larger firms, both in terms of number of attorneys and – more importantly – in terms of our technical and legal qualifications. Our patent litigation lawyers have practiced at some of the most prestigious law firms in the country before joining One LLP, including such multi-national firms as O’Melveny & Myers, Jones Day, and Latham & Watkins.
Our partners not only have extensive experience in patent litigation, but also technical degrees and industry experience in cutting-edge scientific disciplines, including electrical and mechanical engineering, computer science, biotechnology, life sciences, and physics. This technical training has allowed our attorneys to litigate patent disputes in key technological fields, such as pharmaceutical solutions, semiconductor fabrication and emulation systems, optoelectronic transceivers, GSM mobile phone technologies, cryptographic encryption techniques, embedded web server technologies, and computer networking systems. The scientific and technical training of our attorneys is critical, as they possess not only the ability to understand the complex science and technology behind these cases, but they are able to explain the complexity to the lay judges and jurors who determine the outcome of patent infringement suits.
Importantly, our experience extends well past just the courtroom. With the recent introduction of Inter Partes Review (“IPR”) proceedings before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, many patent litigations have been initiated before the USPTO, where the new IPR rules allow a party to test the validity of an asserted patent. These proceedings are attractive to many litigants because they provide an early and efficient resolution of one of the most important issues in a patent litigation – patent validity – with substantially less cost than required for a District Court litigation.
While a brand new proceeding, our litigators are nonetheless highly experienced in IPR proceedings, having not only gone to trial before the USPTO in several of these specialized proceedings, but also are currently involved in a number of pending IPR proceedings. These proceedings may not be the right choice for every patent dispute, but they offer an important alternative for both patent plaintiffs and defendants to a full scale infringement suit in District Court.
As a small firm, we also have the flexibility to offer alternative billing structures beyond just the hourly arrangement that is the mainstay at most other firms. We regularly offer alternatives tailored to meet the needs and budget of our clients, including fixed fee engagements, flat per-month retainers, contingency fee arrangements, and discounted “success fee” engagements. Recent statistics from the AIPLA show that even smaller patent litigations can cost between $1 – 2 million in attorneys’ fees. We routinely undercut this number, however, because we simply don’t believe in the bloated billing practices used at most large firms.
Most litigation can be handled by a lean staff of one or two partners and an associate. Staffing cases with a gaggle of partners, counsel, associates, and support staff virtually guarantees expense and inefficiencies. We prefer to litigate aggressively but leanly. This flexibility and lean business model allows us to complex patent litigations for not only the largest corporations in the United States, but also small to mid-sized companies, and even individual inventors.
Some representative cases our Orange County and Los Angeles patent attorneys have handled include:
- Defending JVM, one of the world’s leading manufacturers of tablet dispensing machines, against its leading competitor’s suit alleging infringement of a patent on tablet feeders.
- Defended Blue Cat Networks, a leading supplier of IP Address Management systems, against a patent infringement suit by Infoblox, and represented Blue Cat in acquiring patents of its own and counter-suing Infoblox on those patents.
- Defended SSW Holding Company, a major supplier to global appliance OEMs, against patent infringement claims related to slide oven racks.
- Defended Win-Holt Manufacturing Group against patent infringement claims brought by Cambro Manufacturing related to three design patents for food service equipment.
- Represented International Game Technology (IGT) in a major patent infringement and antitrust lawsuit against Bally Gaming related to IGT’s “Wheel of Fortune” computerized casino games.
- Defended Shanghai ELE Manufacturing Corp. against allegations in the U.S. International Trade Commission that it infringed patents on ground fault circuit interrupters.
- Defended Blockbuster Inc.’s online subscription video rental service against Netflix’s patent case attempting to shut it down.
- Represented DSU Medical and Medisystems Corporation in obtaining an injunction and multi-million-dollar damage award for infringement of a patent on safety needles for use in dialysis and chemotherapy – and successfully defended the judgment on appeal.
- Represented Material, Inc., in patent litigation over advanced organometallic catalysts.
- Defended Defended Crest Digital against a suit alleging that it infringed a patented process for molding optical discs.
- Represented Meade Instruments in several patent infringement lawsuits involving techniques for aligning computer-controlled celestial telescopes.
- Represented Targus in a patent infringement lawsuit regarding scroll-wheel mice technology.
- Represented Conexant Systems in a patent infringement lawsuit brought by a patent “troll” related to Conexant’s dial-up modem products.
- On behalf of the U.S. Navy, litigated patent infringement lawsuits against multiple large corporations that were using the Navy’s patented technology related to public and private key encryption.
- Represented a B.Braun subsidiary in a patent infringement lawsuit related to cardioplegic pharmaceutical solutions for stopped-heart surgery.
- Defended Cadence/Quickturn against patent infringement claims brought by Mentor Graphics, Aptix, and Meta Systems in a long-running patent dispute over hardware logic emulation systems.
- Represented General Surgical Innovations in a patent infringement lawsuit with Origin over GSI’s patents on devices and techniques for performing minimally invasive surgery.
- Represented Simmons Outdoor Group in a patent infringement litigation concerning rifle scope optics.
- Defended McGaw, Inc. (now B.Braun) against a suit alleging infringement of a patent on computer-controlled peristaltic pharmaceutical dispensing pumps