IP Group Of The Year: Orrick
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IP Group Of The Year: Orrick By Aaron Vehling Law360, New York (February 4, 2016, 8:03 PM ET) -- From protecting game-changing television technology to swatting down mobile device management infringement claims, Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP continued to establish itself as a leader in the intellectual property sector last year, making it one of Law360’s Intellectual Property Groups of the Year.
In 2015 the firm’s 120-attorney intellectual property group shepherded satellite TV service DISH Network to victory against TV networks ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC in a copyright fight over recording and ad-skipping features on DISH’s popular Hopper DVR. The team also helped mobile device management company MobileIron to defeat Good Technology Corp. in a patent infringement suit, after the jury found that MobileIron didn’t infringe enterprise technology patents and ultimately leading to the invalidation of two of the patents. Orrick patent group chair Mark Wine, a partner in the firm’s Orange County office, says a notable trait of the group — spread across 12 offices in the U.S., Europe and Asia — is the profound sense of teamwork. “Our teamwork is superb,” Wine said. “People really respect and help each other.” A big win last year centered on DISH’s fight against the broadcast TV networks over two features on the Hopper DVR, PrimeTime Anytime and AutoHop. PrimeTime Anytime allows users to record prime-time shows aired on the major networks, and AutoHop allows viewers to skip ads in the recordings. Orrick defeated three injunction bids and two appeals, according to the firm. DISH leveraged those early victories into very favorable settlements with some of the networks. One thing DISH negotiated from ABC/Walt Disney Co. was the right to stream ESPN, which Disney said at the
time was the first time it had ever granted such rights. Fox kept on DISH, but in January 2015 a California federal judge tossed the substantive claims that were based on the high court’s Aereo ruling, which was seen as a death-knell for technology like the Hopper. At the time, one expert likened Aereo to a comet that "burned out after a spectacular burst," and said that the Dish case has had a more meaningful impact on the TV technology landscape. Wine says that the team’s focused narrative helped it endure the years-long litigation to achieve victory for DISH. “The team did a really great job of coming up with a strategy that focused on the core copyright issues involved and had a theme from the beginning to the end that really worked,” Wine said. Another notable case for Orrick’s IP team involved patents asserted against Orrick client MobileIron by Good Technology. MobileIron and Good are competitors in the market for products to provide data security for mobile devices. In August, after an 11-day trial, a jury held that none of MobileIron's accused products infringed three of Good's patents, two of which the jury deemed invalid as obvious. Neel Chatterjee, a partner in Orrick’s Silicon Valley office, said he was proud of how the case turned out. “I had the privilege of representing the company not quite from birth but close to birth,” he said. “When it’s hit with a major lawsuit, you really feel like you helped save the company ... and the founders kind of throw their arms around you and say thank you.” Chatterjee highlighted that they relied on what he said was a rather unconventional strategy to convince the jury that MobileIron wasn’t infringing: Instead of MobileIron’s experts just talking about the innovativeness of the company’s own technology, they relied on the ingenuity of Apple’s iPhone. Orrick's team showed that the iPhone, which was launched in 2007, revolutionized the mobile device management industry and led to a more innovative approach to mobile device management. That approach was best reflected in MobileIron's technology based on patents issued in 2010, rather than Good's patents that predated the iPhone by five years, according to the firm. During trial, Chatterjee put up the now-iconic photo of Steve Jobs holding up the first iPhone, and went on to argue that “iPhone’s innovation had a set of constraints that made it difficult, if not impossible, to infringe the [Good] patents asserted,” he said. In another case, Orrick scored one of the highest attorneys' fee awards in a patent case. Orrick represented Dow Chemical Inc. in a dispute with Bayer Inc., which was seeking to claim a monopoly on billion-dollar technology that Dow spent a decade developing, according to the firm. In 2013, Orrick ended up getting summary judgment that Dow hadn't infringed any of the seven asserted patents, and by June 2015 the court awarded $6 million in fees to Dow, with Judge Renee Bumb referring to Bayer's infringement theory as "frivilous," according to the firm.
Overall, 2015 was a banner year for Orrick, Wine said. “We had our best year ever as a group in terms of high-profile cases,” he said. “Things ended up coming together extremely well.” The firm has also been growing its IP practice. Recently, it opened a Houston office, snagging Claudia Wilson Frost, formerly co-chair of DLA Piper’s Global and U.S. Patent Litigation Practices, to work in the new location. Frost has handled more than 40 jury trials in state and federal courts in her more than 30-year career as a trial lawyer, appellate advocate and strategist. The firm has also added some attorneys in its New York office. “We’re very bullish going into 2016,” he said. --Additional reporting by Ryan Davis and Bill Donahue. Editing by Emily Kokoll. All Content © 2003-2016, Portfolio Media, Inc.
IP Group Of The Year: Orrick By Aaron Vehling Law360, New York (February 4, 2016, 8:03 PM ET) -- From protecting game-changing television technology to swatting down mobile device management infringement claims, Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP continued to establish itself as a leader in the intellectual property sector last year, making it one of Law360’s Intellectual Property Groups of the Year.
In 2015 the firm’s 120-attorney intellectual property group shepherded satellite TV service DISH Network to victory against TV networks ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC in a copyright fight over recording and ad-skipping features on DISH’s popular Hopper DVR. The team also helped mobile device management company MobileIron to defeat Good Technology Corp. in a patent infringement suit, after the jury found that MobileIron didn’t infringe enterprise technology patents and ultimately leading to the invalidation of two of the patents. Orrick patent group chair Mark Wine, a partner in the firm’s Orange County office, says a notable trait of the group — spread across 12 offices in the U.S., Europe and Asia — is the profound sense of teamwork. “Our teamwork is superb,” Wine said. “People really respect and help each other.” A big win last year centered on DISH’s fight against the broadcast TV networks over two features on the Hopper DVR, PrimeTime Anytime and AutoHop. PrimeTime Anytime allows users to record prime-time shows aired on the major networks, and AutoHop allows viewers to skip ads in the recordings. Orrick defeated three injunction bids and two appeals, according to the firm. DISH leveraged those early victories into very favorable settlements with some of the networks. One thing DISH negotiated from ABC/Walt Disney Co. was the right to stream ESPN, which Disney said at the
time was the first time it had ever granted such rights. Fox kept on DISH, but in January 2015 a California federal judge tossed the substantive claims that were based on the high court’s Aereo ruling, which was seen as a death-knell for technology like the Hopper. At the time, one expert likened Aereo to a comet that "burned out after a spectacular burst," and said that the Dish case has had a more meaningful impact on the TV technology landscape. Wine says that the team’s focused narrative helped it endure the years-long litigation to achieve victory for DISH. “The team did a really great job of coming up with a strategy that focused on the core copyright issues involved and had a theme from the beginning to the end that really worked,” Wine said. Another notable case for Orrick’s IP team involved patents asserted against Orrick client MobileIron by Good Technology. MobileIron and Good are competitors in the market for products to provide data security for mobile devices. In August, after an 11-day trial, a jury held that none of MobileIron's accused products infringed three of Good's patents, two of which the jury deemed invalid as obvious. Neel Chatterjee, a partner in Orrick’s Silicon Valley office, said he was proud of how the case turned out. “I had the privilege of representing the company not quite from birth but close to birth,” he said. “When it’s hit with a major lawsuit, you really feel like you helped save the company ... and the founders kind of throw their arms around you and say thank you.” Chatterjee highlighted that they relied on what he said was a rather unconventional strategy to convince the jury that MobileIron wasn’t infringing: Instead of MobileIron’s experts just talking about the innovativeness of the company’s own technology, they relied on the ingenuity of Apple’s iPhone. Orrick's team showed that the iPhone, which was launched in 2007, revolutionized the mobile device management industry and led to a more innovative approach to mobile device management. That approach was best reflected in MobileIron's technology based on patents issued in 2010, rather than Good's patents that predated the iPhone by five years, according to the firm. During trial, Chatterjee put up the now-iconic photo of Steve Jobs holding up the first iPhone, and went on to argue that “iPhone’s innovation had a set of constraints that made it difficult, if not impossible, to infringe the [Good] patents asserted,” he said. In another case, Orrick scored one of the highest attorneys' fee awards in a patent case. Orrick represented Dow Chemical Inc. in a dispute with Bayer Inc., which was seeking to claim a monopoly on billion-dollar technology that Dow spent a decade developing, according to the firm. In 2013, Orrick ended up getting summary judgment that Dow hadn't infringed any of the seven asserted patents, and by June 2015 the court awarded $6 million in fees to Dow, with Judge Renee Bumb referring to Bayer's infringement theory as "frivilous," according to the firm.
Overall, 2015 was a banner year for Orrick, Wine said. “We had our best year ever as a group in terms of high-profile cases,” he said. “Things ended up coming together extremely well.” The firm has also been growing its IP practice. Recently, it opened a Houston office, snagging Claudia Wilson Frost, formerly co-chair of DLA Piper’s Global and U.S. Patent Litigation Practices, to work in the new location. Frost has handled more than 40 jury trials in state and federal courts in her more than 30-year career as a trial lawyer, appellate advocate and strategist. The firm has also added some attorneys in its New York office. “We’re very bullish going into 2016,” he said. --Additional reporting by Ryan Davis and Bill Donahue. Editing by Emily Kokoll. All Content © 2003-2016, Portfolio Media, Inc.
