U.S. Supreme Court

Acorda Therapeutics, Inc. v. Roxane Laboratories, Inc.

Persuaded the Supreme Court to deny a petition for certiorari regarding the effect of blocking patents in assessing the obviousness of patent claims. 140 S. Ct. 111 (2019).

BTG International Ltd. v. Amneal Pharmaceuticals LLC

U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit
Successfully defended decisions by PTAB and district court that found it was obvious to treat patients suffering from metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer with a combination of two prior-art drugs. Convinced the district court, the Federal Circuit, and the U.S. Supreme Court to deny the plaintiffs' request for an injunction against generic launch pending appeal, and then persuaded the Federal Circuit to affirm that the claims were unpatentable on the merits. No. 18A539 (U.S. Nov. 21, 2018); 923 F.3d 1063 (Fed. Cir. 2019).

Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe v. Mylan Pharmaceuticals Inc.

U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit
Persuaded Federal Circuit to hold that Indian tribes cannot assert tribal sovereign immunity to inter partes review of tribally owned patents, and convinced U.S. Supreme Court to deny certiorari. 896 F.3d 1322 (Fed. Cir. 2018).

Upper Skagit Indian Tribe v. Lundgren

Represented landowners seeking to quiet title to a disputed boundary area with an adjoining parcel of non-trust land recently purchased on the open market by a Native American tribe. The tribe waived its claims of sovereign immunity from quiet-title actions in state court after the U.S. Supreme Court remanded to the Washington Supreme Court for that court to consider the applicability by analogy of the "immovable property" exception, which bars state and foreign sovereigns from claiming immunity from actions affecting land owned outside the scope of their sovereign domains. 138 S. Ct. 1649 (2018).

State Supreme Courts

Stiner v. Amazon.com, Inc.

Ohio Supreme Court
Argued and obtained a 7-0 ruling on behalf of Amazon.com, Inc., regarding the cutting-edge issue of liability for third-party sellers on websites. 156 Ohio St. 3d 1443 (2021).

Amazon.com, Inc., Appellant, v. Morgan McMillan, Individually and as Next Friend of E.G., a Minor, Appellee

Texas Supreme Court
Obtained favorable ruling for Amazon.com, Inc., in a matter involving the third-party seller issue. The Texas Supreme Court issued a 5-2 ruling, holding that Amazon is not liable as a seller of products sold by a third party. 625 S.W.3d 101 (2021).

Murray v. BEJ Mins., LLC

Montana Supreme Court
Briefed and argued certified question to Montana Supreme Court regarding whether rare Tyrannosaurus rex discovery and other multimillion-dollar dinosaur fossils qualify as "minerals" for purposes of reserved mineral rights in Montana given that they are scientifically minerals and extremely valuable, "fossil fuels" are treated as "minerals," and extremely valuable rocks are nearly universally treated as "minerals." In a 4-3 opinion, the Montana Supreme Court sided with ranchers and held that the fossils were not "minerals." 2020 MT 131, 400 Mont. 135, 464 P.3d 80 (Mont. 2000).

State of Arizona, ex rel, Mark Brnovich, Attorney General v. Arizona Board of Regents

Supreme Court of Arizona
Served as counsel for Arizona Board of Regents (ABOR) in the Arizona Superior Court, the Arizona Court of Appeals, and the Arizona Supreme Court, defending suit by the state attorney general alleging that ABOR's tuition policies violated the state constitution. Agreeing with ABOR's position, the Arizona Supreme Court affirmed the trial and court of appeals decisions holding that the attorney general did not have statutory authority to bring his constitutional claim. The Supreme Court also remanded for further proceeding the attorney general's separate challenge to ABOR's now-abandoned practice of charging in-state tuition to DACA students graduating from Arizona high schools. (Decided November 25, 2020, No. CV-19-0247) ___ Ariz. ___, ___ P.3d ___ (2020) 250 Ariz. 127, 476 P.3d 307.

 Oregon Trucking Associations, Inc. v. Department of Transportation

Oregon Supreme Court
Successfully represented digital government service provider as amicus curiae before the Oregon Supreme Court. The court upheld a licensing agreement between two Oregon state agencies to which our client held a sub-license. 432 P.3d 1080 (Or. 2019).

Alaska Spine Center, LLC v. Mat-Su Valley Medical Center, LLC, et al.

Supreme Court of Alaska
Obtained a unanimous ruling by the Alaska Supreme Court upholding summary judgment in favor of our ambulatory surgery center client. Our client challenged the State of Alaska's grant of an exemption to Alaska certificate-of-need laws to an Anchorage-based surgical facility that sought to relocate from Anchorage to Wasilla. 2019 WL 1416034.

Icon Groupe LLC v. Washington County

Court of Appeals of Oregon
Supreme Court of Oregon
Represented outdoor advertising sign company on Washington County's appeal of mandamus order compelling the county to issue 17 permits for outdoor advertising signs. Successfully opposed Washington County's emergency motion to stay, obtained affirmance in Oregon Court of Appeals, and persuaded Oregon Supreme Court to deny further review. 359 P.3d 269 (Or. Ct. App. 2015), rev. den. 359 P.3d 269 (Or. 2016).

Appellate Courts

State of Arizona, et al. v. Arizona Board of Regents, et al.

Court of Appeals of Arizona
Superior Court of Arizona
Served as counsel for Arizona Board of Regents (ABOR) in the Arizona Superior Court and the Court of Appeals of Arizona, defending suit by the state attorney general concerning ABOR's lease of land to Omni Hotels for construction adjacent to the Arizona State University campus. The court of appeals affirmed (1) dismissal of three counts of the attorney general's suit for lack of statutory authority; (2) a grant of summary judgment to ABOR on the fourth count under the Arizona statute of limitations; and (3) an award to ABOR of nearly $1 million for attorneys' fees. (Decided April 20, 2021, No. TX2019-000011) ___ Ariz. ___, ___ P.3d ___ (2021) 486 P.3d 1140, 2021 WL 1540961.

Tyson Farms, Inc. v. Uninsured Employers' Fund

Maryland Court of Appeals
Successfully sought Maryland high court review of judgment against Tyson Foods holding Tyson liable for medical expenses of an employee at an independent chicken farm, then briefed and argued appeal leading to reversal. 471 Md. 386, 241 A.3d 929 (2020).

Klein v. Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries

Oregon Court of Appeals
Helped persuade the Oregon Court of Appeals on behalf of amicus curiae Americans United for Separation of Church and State that the federal and state free speech and free exercise clauses do not permit places of public accommodation—including cake bakeries, the business at issue in this case—to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation. 410 P.3d 1051 (Or. App. 2017), rev. denied 434 P.3d 25 (2018), cert. granted, vacated, and remanded 139 S. Ct. 2713 (2019).

In re Air Crash over the S. Indian Ocean

U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia
Represented Boeing before the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation, the transferee district court (D.D.C.), and the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia related to the eventual dismissal of cases arising from the March 8, 2014, disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370. 946 F.3d 607 (D.C. Cir. 2020) and 352 F. Supp. 3d 19 (D.D.C. 2018).

U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit

Dietrich v. Boeing Co.

Briefed and argued the appeal that reversed a district court's remand of an asbestos case that Boeing had removed under the federal officer removal statute. The Ninth Circuit’s opinion is now the leading published opinion on the rules for timeliness of removal and held that Boeing had been timely in seeking removal. 14 F.4th 1089 (9th Cir. 2021), 28 U.S.C. § 1442.

B.K. et al. v. Snyder

Represented children in the Arizona foster care system. The children alleged that Arizona's statewide policies and practices deprived them of required medical services, among other things, and thus subjected them to a substantial risk of harm. The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court’s order certifying a class of all children who are or will be in the Arizona foster care system. 2019 WL 1868287 (9th Cir. 2019).

Global BTG LLC v. National Air Cargo Inc.

U.S. District Court for the Central District of California
Represented the plaintiff Global BTG, an aircraft financing company, in a case arising out of the parties' agreement involving the financing of eight commercial aircraft. The Ninth Circuit affirmed the judgment that had resulted from a jury verdict in favor of Global BTG on its breach of contract claim against National Air Cargo, ruling that the jury was properly instructed and that the jury damages award was supported by substantial evidence. 2016 WL 2811591 (9th Cir.).

Maple v. Costco Wholesale Corporation

U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Washington
Represented Costco in the trial court and on appeal. Obtained dismissal of first and second amended complaints for failure to state a claim. The district court found the plaintiff’s allegations of deception in the name of the product "VitaRain" to be implausible, and also concluded that the plaintiff had failed to adequately plead causation of any injury. The Ninth Circuit affirmed. 2016 WL 2621345 (9th Cir.), 2013 WL 5885389 (E.D. Wash.).

Metalmark NW LLC v. Stewart

Successfully represented Metalmark Northwest LLC in multiple cases in the Ninth Circuit after AAA arbitration and jury trial against former partner and co-conspirator, resulting in a recovery of over $2 million. 2008 WL 11442024.

U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit

Rudgayzer v. Google Inc., Amalfitano v. Google Inc.

U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York 2014 WL 12676233
U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California 2015 WL 456646
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit 2017 WL 943933
Represented Google in defense of purported class action challenging previous class-action settlement and alleging claims under the Stored Communications Act (SCA) in connection with the launch of the Google Buzz social networking application. Obtained order transferring case from New York to California, and successfully defended that order before the Second Circuit. After the transfer, court dismissed plaintiffs' claims with prejudice.

Sun City Taxpayers' Association v. Citizens Utilities Company

U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut 847 F. Supp. 281
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit 45 F.3d 58
Served as trial and appellate counsel in defense of civil Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) action seeking nearly $500 million in damages brought against a public utility alleging fraud in the rate-setting process. Obtained judgment of dismissal, which was affirmed on appeal.

Boeing v. Egypt Air

Served as appellate counsel for Boeing in a case arising out of the 1999 crash of EgyptAir Flight 990. Boeing brought a complaint to declare its rights against EgyptAir and its Egyptian insurer, Misr Insurance. The Second Circuit affirmed the district court’s denial of Misr's motion to dismiss Boeing's complaint based on sovereign immunity, personal jurisdiction, and the Declaratory Judgment Act. 2007 WL 1315716 (2d Cir.).

U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit

Nintendo Co., Ltd. et al. v. Gamevice, Inc. (PTAB, Federal Circuit); In the Matter of Certain Portable Gaming Console Systems with Attachable Handheld Controllers and Components Thereof II (ITC)

Defended Nintendo Co., Ltd., and Nintendo of America Inc. in a four-year battle over the exclusion of the Nintendo Switch from importation into the United States. The matter included two cases before the International Trade Commission (ITC), one appeal to the Federal Circuit, a district court case, and two cases before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board. In the first ITC case, in which two patents were asserted against Nintendo, our team won a rare summary determination of non-infringement. In the second ITC case, which involved a full evidentiary hearing based on a patent prosecuted specifically to avoid the result in the first ITC case, we obtained a finding of no violation. PTAB-IPR2020-01197 (PTAB case is ongoing), 2021 WL 4061406.

In re Google LLC

Successfully petitioned the Federal Circuit for a writ of mandamus directing the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas to transfer a patent infringement suit against Google to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. The Federal Circuit agreed with Google that the district court clearly abused its discretion in denying transfer, granted the petition, and ordered transfer to California. 2021 WL 4592280 (Fed. Cir. Oct. 6, 2021).

Trimble Inc. v. PerDiemCo LLC

Convinced the Federal Circuit to narrow the longstanding Red Wing Shoe doctrine regarding personal jurisdiction in declaratory judgment actions and to reverse the district court’s dismissal of Trimble's declaratory judgment suit. ___ (Fed. Cir. 2021).

Uniloc 2017 LLC v. Hulu, Inc.

Convinced the Federal Circuit that the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) is entitled to review the patent eligibility of proposed substitute claims in an inter partes review. 966 F.3d 1295 (Fed. Cir. 2020).

Cleveland Clinic Foundation v. True Health Diagnostics LLC

Convinced the Federal Circuit that five patents asserted by Cleveland Clinic relating to methods of diagnosing cardiovascular disease were not patent eligible because they were directed to a natural correlation between cardiovascular disease and levels of a biomarker in the blood. 859 F.3d 1352 (Fed. Cir. 2017); 760 F. App’x 1013 (Fed. Cir. 2019).

Vehicle IP, LLC v. Cellco Partnership

Won affirmance of a claim construction and summary judgment of non-infringement of a patent involving vehicle navigation applications that estimate times of arrival. 757 F. App'x 954 (Fed. Cir. 2019).

AC Technologies SA v. Amazon.com, Inc.

Persuaded the Federal Circuit to affirm final written decisions by PTAB that declared patent claims to redundant storage of pieces of a data file unpatentable over prior art. 912 F.3d 1358 (Fed. Cir. 2019).

Nuvo Pharmaceuticals (Ireland) DAC v. Dr. Reddy's Laboratories, Inc.

Convinced the Federal Circuit to reverse a district court's ruling that two patents contained an adequate written description of the claimed invention. The claims required an amount of an uncoated proton-pump inhibitor effective to raise gastric pH to a certain level, but the Federal Circuit held that the specifications failed to demonstrate that the inventor knew, rather than hoped, that uncoated proton-pump inhibitors would work. 925 F.3d 1368 (Fed. Cir. 2019).

Digital Media Technologies, Inc. v. Netflix, Inc.

Won affirmance of ruling that held that patent claims on a multimedia system with encrypted content and encrypted licenses were directed to the patent-ineligible abstract idea of digital rights management. 742 App'x 510 (Fed. Cir. 2018).

In re Copaxone Consolidated Cases (Teva Pharmaceuticals USA, Inc. v. Sandoz Inc.); Yeda Research & Development Co. v. Mylan Pharmaceuticals Inc.

Convinced Federal Circuit to hold that claims to a 40mg, three-times-a-week dosing regimen for a multiple sclerosis drug were invalid as obvious over prior art. 906 F.3d 1013 (Fed. Cir. 2018); 906 F.3d 1031 (Fed. Cir. 2018).

CAP Co., Ltd. v. McAfee Inc.

Won affirmance of two PTAB decisions invalidating claims of patents relating to anti-virus technology. 730 F. App’s 927 (Fed. Cir. 2017); 730 App'x 931 (Fed. Cir. 2017).

Google LLC v. Network-1 Technologies, Inc.

Convinced Federal Circuit to vacate patentability determination by PTAB regarding patent on identification of electronic works and to remand the case for reconsideration under a more favorable claim construction. 726 F. App’x 779 (Fed. Cir. 2018).

MACOM Technology Solutions Holdings, Inc. v. Infineon Technologies AG

Persuaded Federal Circuit to affirm most of a preliminary injunction that declared that Infineon's termination of a patent license agreement was ineffective. 881 F.3d 1323 (Fed. Cir. 2018).

Second Circuit

• Coordinating counsel for U.S. and U.K. appellees in appeal pending in the Netherlands from successful defense of class certification proceedings governed by Dutch law.
• Successfully represented major bank in putative antitrust class actions alleging price-fixing conspiracy and manipulation in auction rate securities market; Second Circuit affirmed dismissal of complaints for failure to state a claim.
• Represented financial economists in brief addressing standards for evaluating efficiency of securities markets; submitted to Second Circuit in petroleum company securities litigation.
• Defending appeal of successful dismissal of foreign financial services companies from antitrust and Commodity Exchange Act (CEA) putative class action alleging manipulation of the Yen LIBOR and Euroyen TIBOR interest rate benchmarks on grounds of lack of personal jurisdiction.
• Defended appeal of successful dismissal of financial services companies from antitrust and RICO putative class action alleging manipulation of the Yen LIBOR and Euroyen TIBOR interest rate benchmarks on grounds of failure to allege a sufficient injury to establish Article III standing.
• Defending appeal of successful dismissal of financial services companies from antitrust class action alleging manipulation of the Euribor interest rate benchmark on grounds of lack of personal jurisdiction.
• Defended appeal of successful dismissal of financial services companies from antitrust and RICO putative class action alleging manipulation of the Swiss franc LIBOR interest rate benchmark for lack of subject matter jurisdiction on the grounds that the named plaintiffs had dissolved and lacked capacity to sue.