Contacts:
Eric J. Lobenfeld, New York
Raymond A. Kurz, Washington, D.C.
Steven P. Hollman, Washington, D.C.
Richard de Bodo, Los Angeles

Proprietary technologies are often the lifeblood of our intellectual property (IP) clients' businesses. To help ensure the continued vitality of our clients’ technologies, Hogan & Hartson maintains a presence in the markets — and courtrooms — critical to our clients’ commercial activities. With IP litigators located throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia, we are prepared to protect our clients’ IP wherever and whenever the need arises.

Our geographic reach enables us to draw on our firm’s vast interdisciplinary capabilities to create the right teams and coordinate tailored strategies for our clients. We partner with attorneys experienced in areas such as regulatory, antitrust, technology transfer, computer, telecommunications, international trade, and government contracts law. For European and Asian clients, we team bilingual IP attorneys with litigators highly skilled in the technical side of IP. Whatever the issue, our lawyers focus on making complex matters intelligible to juries and judges. We regularly appear before federal courts throughout the United States, the U.S. Courts of Appeals, particularly the Federal Circuit, and the U.S. Supreme Court, as well as administrative tribunals and appellate venues throughout the United States, and appellate and non-appellate venues throughout Europe. We have an extensive practice before the International Trade Commission (ITC). Hogan & Hartson is one of only six law firms recommended by Legal 500 US as having “specific expertise in international trade contentious patent litigation” (2007). Two of only 14 lawyers recommended by Legal 500 US as leading in ITC patent litigation in the United States (2007) are from our firm.

Our prowess in litigating intellectual property appeals has earned us recognition by leading surveys, including those conducted by Intellectual Property Today. Legal 500 US (2007) honored us with a top-tier ranking in the area of patent litigation appeals.

Among the more than 120 attorneys in our firm’s full-service IP practice, more than 60 focus on intellectual property litigation. While our IP practice is comparable to many IP boutique firms in size and core patent ability, we significantly surpass them in capabilities and scope. With our geographic, interdisciplinary, and industry reach, we are able to combine our expansive and dedicated IP litigation capabilities with highly skilled lawyers who are grounded in the many technologies that these complex cases present.

Related Experience

• We represented Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited, the largest pharmaceutical company in Japan and one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world, against generic drug company Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, Ltd. and its U.S. subsidiary (Teva) in a Hatch-Waxman lawsuit relating to Takeda’s multibillion-dollar, blockbuster anti-ulcer, heartburn, and acid reflux drug PREVACID®. The U.S. District Court of Delaware upheld the main Takeda patent covering PREVACID®, ruling that Teva infringed and that the patent is valid and enforceable. The court issued a permanent injunction against the FDA's approval of Teva's proposed generic product and enjoined Teva from making, using, selling, or offering for sale its proposed generic product until expiration of Takeda's exclusive rights. PREVACID® is one of the top 10 selling drugs in the world with annual sales in excess of $3.3 billion.
• The firm secured a much anticipated victory for long-term client the American Red Cross in a trademark dispute brought by Johnson & Johnson (J&J) over its use of the Red Cross emblem. Following the favorable decision on summary judgment, all of J&J's remaining claims against the defendants alleging that the sales of American Red Cross branded products by the American Red Cross and its licensees were unlawful were dismissed with prejudice. By affirming the right of the Red Cross to use its emblem or authorize others’ use of its emblem in the sale of products related to its mission, the decision brings an end to a more than 100-year-old dispute between J&J and the Red Cross concerning the parties' respective rights to use the Red Cross emblem.
• Protecting a manufacturer of traffic control products against trade dress infringement claims, we persuaded the U.S. Supreme Court that our client’s design was patented and thus ineligible for trade dress protection.
• When Sun Microsystems faced a patent infringement lawsuit from patent holding company Exponential Solutions, our intellectual property lawyers successfully defended firm client Sun. Among other things, they won the Markman hearing in the action, as well as a critical motion to compel deposition testimony and to review expert-related documents that had been withheld on the alleged basis of attorney work product and privilege. Shortly after these rulings, Exponential Solutions agreed to dismiss its lawsuit. The lawsuit involved highly specialized underlying technical considerations surrounding parallel processing or "grid" computing, as well as required effective strategic and creative legal approaches for handling patent infringement claims filed by patent holding companies, sometimes known as "patent trolls."
• On behalf of a laser technology company, we secured a jury verdict in a patent infringement lawsuit in District Court involving technology relating to consumer laser range-finders used for golfing and hunting.
• On behalf of a branded pharmaceutical company, we initiated litigation to enforce the company's patents directed to dialysis-related treatments against generic manufacturers of a pharmaceutical used in the treatments, and successfully enforced those patents.
• When Proxim Wireless Corporation infringed two wireless local-area network patents obtained by Symbol Technologies, Inc., covering a basic feature of the WiFi standard, we obtained a jury verdict in Symbol’s favor, followed by a judgment awarding Symbol $23 million in damages, plus $3 million in interest. After defeating Proxim's equitable defenses in a subsequent bench trial, we obtained a favorable settlement on behalf of Symbol, whereby Proxim will pay Symbol $22.75 million for previous sales of the infringing products, plus a royalty fee for future sales of WLAN products covered by Symbol patents for the life of those patents, and will transfer certain patents and patent applications to Symbol.
• Persuading the Federal Circuit to reverse a trial court decision, we stopped a global semiconductor firm from using the patents of our client in connection with Pentium microprocessors.
• Representing a communications company in patent litigation involving our client’s patent for high power TV broadcasting equipment, we obtained a judgment in the client’s favor, including an award of $19 million in damages and attorneys' fees.
• A large international beverage manufacturer relies on our Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles offices to handle its trademark, trade dress, copyright, and Internet-related enforcement matters, including the filing of infringement, dilution, cybersquatting, and unfair competition suits.
• We persuaded a jury to return a verdict in favor of a Fortune 100 computer and systems integration company when it found that the defendant had infringed our client’s patent for a robotic surgical system and rejected challenges to the validity of the patent.
• Attorneys in our Warsaw office secured a Polish Supreme Court ruling on behalf of Syrena Entertainment Group denying dubbing actors additional remuneration for exploitation of dubbed films.
• The firm achieved a successful outcome for a manufacturer of consumer electronics products following a jury trial in a patent infringement case. By strongly contesting each element of the case, we were able to minimize damages to a small fraction of the amount demanded by the plaintiff, as well as a fraction of the jury verdicts that the plaintiff obtained against a number of other competitor-manufacturers in separate trials. Our approach to this litigation minimized the client's exposure in the case at hand and put the client in a strong position to resist demands by other so-called "patent trolls" for payments of unwarranted royalties.

• In an appeal of what was reportedly the largest patent case ever brought before the ITC, we helped Gemstar-TV Guide International secure a ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit that vacated the ITC’s determination that Scientific-Atlanta did not infringe two Gemstar patents relating to the company’s Interactive Program Guide technology, and reversed the ITC's ruling that one of the patents was unenforceable.
• Ensuring the vitality of several Chinese battery companies, the firm successfully defended our clients against industry giant Energizer Holdings, Inc. and its subsidiary, Eveready Battery company, Inc. in an ITC 337 patent infringement proceeding, in which the Commission ruled that the patent asserted by Energizer Holding was invalid, leaving our clients free to continue importing zero-mercury-added alkaline batteries to the United States.
• When a former customer of the integrated circuit manufacturing services of our client, a semiconductor manufacturer, attempted to begin manufacturing integrated circuits using our client’s technology, we obtained an exclusion order from the ITC.
• We served as lead trial counsel in the successful defense of Dominant Semiconductors Sdn. Bhd in a Section 337 patent infringement investigation filed by Osram Opto Semiconductors before the ITC, resulting in a favorable ruling of non-infringement of nine patents, including a finding of invalidity for indefiniteness of one of Osram's asserted patent families.
• We obtained a major victory from the ITC for our clients Kimberly-Clark Corporation and Safeskin Corporation in their ongoing COLOR PURPLE trademark enforcement efforts. As a result of our work, the ITC issued a general exclusion order barring the importation into the United States of all purple protective gloves which infringe Kimberly-Clark and Safeskin's COLOR PURPLE trademarks.