Intellectual property litigation can be a powerful offensive or defensive tool and a vital component of business strategy. Whether driven by a preemptive or preventative approach, patent litigation can stop competitors from designing, launching, importing, and marketing products that infringe on your patent rights and protect against claims that threaten your investments and assets. Trademark, trade secret, copyright, and unfair competition claims can be deployed separately or as part of a coordinated litigation strategy to protect key investments, including your irreplaceable reputation and goodwill.

Our patent litigation team mobilizes technical and scientific knowledge, business understanding, and courtroom experience to protect your patent rights. Our attorneys have handled hundreds of patent litigations in courts throughout the United States, including in those jurisdictions known for speedy dispositions and expedited paths to trial.

We are recognized nationally for our patent litigation capabilities, which include a network of attorneys throughout the world who facilitate a global approach, where needed, to the resolution of patent disputes. Our patent litigators and prosecutors work closely on specialized USPTO post-grant proceedings, including reissues, reexaminations, and inter-partes reviews (IPRs).

Our litigation team also draws upon deep experience litigating trademark, copyright, unfair competition, licensing, and trade secret issues – both as stand-alone legal claims and as elements of broader intellectual property or business disputes. Our attorneys apply these diverse legal theories across a broad range of industries, from online marketing and the latest digital and virtual technologies to established industries such as manufacturing and forest products.

We handle intellectual property disputes in courts across the country, and we also have experience leveraging alternative forums including domestic and international arbitrations, the Trademark Trial and Appeals Board, and industry self-regulatory review proceedings for false advertising. Our experience gives us the perspective to weave together a variety of legal claims and theories across multiple potential venues into a coordinated litigation strategy tailored to your business objectives.

Our Services

  • All phases of patent, trademark, copyright, unfair competition, and trade secret litigation
  • Patent licensing and monetization
  • Patent infringement, validity, and enforceability opinions
  • Patent reexaminations, reissues, and IPRs
  • Trademark opposition and cancellation proceedings
  • International and domestic arbitration and mediation
  • ITC actions and proceedings
  • Appeals
  • Alternative dispute resolution
  • Domain name disputes (UDRP)

Experience Across a Broad Range of Technologies and Industries

  • Biotechnology
  • Business Systems
  • Consumer Products
  • Display Technology
  • Electronics
  • Exercise and Sporting Goods
  • Food Products and Distribution
  • Instrumentation
  • Lasers
  • Mechanical Devices
  • Medical Devices
  • Petroleum
  • Software
  • Telecommunications
  • Wineries
  • Wood Products

Strategy Aligned with Business Objectives

The path to resolving a patent, trademark, or other intellectual property dispute is guided by numerous factors including venue, current/future value of the asset, competitive issues, and company strategy. We’ll communicate with you at the outset to map the path forward, assess merits and risks, and decide on the right options and strategies to achieve your goals. We align the litigation strategy with your business objectives and priorities to minimize interruption and risk.

Related Capabilities

Experience

  • Represented SnapRays, LLC d/b/a SnapPower in a Section 337 investigation before the International Trade Commission (ITC) seeking a general exclusion order to prevent the importation of products infringing the client’s patents, including multiple direct competitors’ products. Following the hearing in early 2019, the ITC found a violation of Section 337 and entered a general exclusion order that would bar any party from importing infringing products into the United States. Certain Powered Cover Plates, Inv. No. 337-TA-1124.
  • Represented American Traffic Solutions, Inc., the nation’s leading supplier of automated traffic enforcement technology, in patent litigation against a competitor in multiple jurisdictions. The case resulted in a judgment of patent infringement, validity and enforceability in favor of our client; the entry of a permanent injunction against the competitor; and the assignment of the competitor’s own patent portfolio to our client.
  • Defended Amazon.com, Inc. against charges of infringement brought by an owner of various patents covering consumer goods. Amazon was accused of violating the plaintiffs’ patent, copyright, trademark, publicity and competition rights. The case resulted in claim dismissal, summary judgment, declaratory judgment and an award of attorneys’ fees and costs in our client’s favor.
  • Represented ITEX Corporation in a trademark, advertising and deceptive trade practices litigation involving virtual currency and barter exchanges, resulting in a judgment of false and misleading advertising, entry of a permanent injunction and an award of attorneys’ fees and costs.
  • Defended Targus, Inc. against patent infringement claims directed at Targus’s laptop computer bags. We obtained summary judgment of non-infringement and a unanimous decision from the Federal Circuit affirming that judgment. Wleklinski v. Targus, Inc., No. 2007-1273 (Fed. Cir. Dec. 17, 2007).
  • Represented Park City Group, Inc. in a series of infringement actions against competitors infringing Park City Group’s business software patents for such innovations as labor scheduling and demand forecasting.
  • Represented Bob Evans Farms, Inc. and BEF Foods, Inc. in a trade secrets case in which a supplier and competitor of our clients sought a preliminary and permanent injunction against the manufacture and sale of a particular product line. After the court denied the preliminary injunction motion, the supplier/competitor terminated all supply to our clients essentially without notice. We counterclaimed for intentional interference with business relations, breach of contract, promissory estoppel and fraud. Under pressure to produce support for its trade secrets claim, the supplier/competitor dismissed all of its original claims. The court granted our motion for attorneys’ fees and costs incurred in fighting the dismissed claims. After four of our clients’ claims survived motions for summary judgment, the parties settled through mediation.
  • Defended Ultradent Products, Inc. against patent infringement claims targeting Ultradent’s soft-tissue lasers. We filed an IPR petition (IPR 2016-00838), and the case quickly settled when the PTAB instituted trial proceedings in the IPRs.
  • Defended Ultradent Products, Inc. against patent infringement claims based on dental curing lights, including by filing IPR petitions targeting the patents in suit (IPRs 2015-00051; 29015-00080; 2015-00126; and 2015-00139).
  • Defended Origen Biomedical, Inc. against patent infringement claims based on medical devices used in connection with cryopreservation. The case settled after we defeated a motion for preliminary injunction seeking to halt all sales of the accused product and won a stay of the litigation pending reexamination.
  • Represented Skedco, Inc. in many matters including patent and trademark procurement, patent infringement, breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duty, trade secret litigation, negotiations with distributors and shareholder litigation. We recently represented the company in a patent infringement case involving devices for simulating hemorrhages, which are used in training first responders. In this case, in 2017 we won an appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, reversing the trial court’s 2016 adverse judgment of non-infringement. The case was remanded to the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon, and that court ruled in Skedco’s favor in granting summary judgment of infringement. The parties were proceeding to a jury trial on damages and defendant’s affirmative defenses. The case settled on the eve of trial.
  • Represented Columbia Industries, Inc. in a suit for misappropriation of trade secrets in federal district court in Oregon. Columbia discovered that a recently departed employee had taken highly confidential materials and information relating to the design of Columbia landfill tippers. We investigated, brought suit and moved for a preliminary injunction against the former employee and individuals and companies with which he did business upon leaving Columbia. As part of a settlement reached by the parties, a final judgment of permanent injunction was entered in the case.
  • Represented Troy Healthcare LLC in a trademark and trade dress infringement case brought against Troy’s former distributor in the Western District of Washington. Troy sought to enjoin defendants’ use of the mark DROPAIN and trade dress confusingly similar to that used with Troy’s STOPAIN® topical analgesic products. The court entered a preliminary injunction requiring Nutraceutical to stop using the DROPAIN name and trade dress and recall product from resellers nationwide.
  • Represented Harry and David in more than ten cases asserting that competitors’ use of Harry and David’s trademarks as search engine keyword triggers constitutes trademark infringement. Most cases settled, some based on entry of a judgment enjoining the defendant from further use of the trademarks.
  • Successfully overcame attempts by patent assertion entities (also referred to by courts and commentators as “non-practicing entities” or “patent trolls”) to demand licensing payments from clients based on patents of contested economic and innovative value.
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