Patent Litigation

From pre-litigation investigations through trial and appeal, our attorneys work with our clients to attain the best results and meet the client's business objectives. Many of our patent litigators have substantial technical knowledge garnered both from academic and industry experience, enabling them to understand not only the technology at issue but, just as importantly, how that technology fits into a client's business strategies.

Excellence in courtroom skills, business-oriented strategies, and broad technical know-how are hallmarks of our patent litigation practice. Our patent litigators are trial lawyers first and foremost, and are particularly adept at presenting complex technical issues in straight-forward, understandable terms that strike a chord with lay jurors and judges. That skill set recently resulted in a jury trial win for Siemens Mobility, where all eight of its asserted patents were found valid and infringed, and over $15 million in damages were awarded. On behalf of our client Cook Medical, we convinced the district court to grant Cook’s motion for summary judgment of invalidity, resulting in dismissal of the action, which we successfully defended on appeal.

While we never shy away from taking a case to trial, we recognize that often it is in a client’s best interest to dispose of disputes more expeditiously and economically. Indeed, since cases are often effectively won or lost at the claim construction stage, our experienced litigators bring the full force of their patent and trial experience to bear on "Markman" claim construction hearings. Recently, a dispositive claim construction in favor of our client resulted in the patentee’s immediate dismissal of a Section 337 Investigation before the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC).

We regularly handle cases in all of the major patent venues across the country, including the Eastern and Western Districts of Texas, Delaware, the Eastern District of Virginia, Central and Northern Districts of California, the Western District of Wisconsin, the Northern District of Illinois, and the Southern District of New York.  In addition, we have extensive experience with Section 337 cases before the ITC, and Section 1498 cases before the U.S. Court of Federal Claims.  And we routinely handle appeals before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.  Our patent team also includes lawyers with a focus on Hatch-Waxman matters, including Paragraph IV litigation and the successful commercialization of generic drugs.

When additional technical or regulatory expertise is needed, our litigators can also draw on the diverse strengths of our patent prosecution attorneys. Crowell & Moring is ranked among the leading patent procurement firms in the country. One of our partners formerly served as acting director of the USPTO and over 70 of our lawyers and patent agents are registered to practice before the USPTO. Our litigation and prosecution experience, coupled with our deep technical bench makes us particularly effective in handling all types of post-grant proceedings before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board, often in coordination with parallel litigation.