Intellectual Property Litigation

Intellectual property is a critical, valuable part of your business. It can also be leveraged unfairly to disrupt your legitimate business goals. Having represented both plaintiffs and defendants, our firm is adept at both protecting intellectual property and protecting your business from accusations of infringement. 

Our substantive experience spans the entire IP spectrum: patent, trademark, copyright, trade secret, and domain name disputes. Because of the breadth of our practice areas, our attorneys have found themselves litigating IP disputes in multiple venues across the country, including district courts, appellate courts (including the Federal Circuit), and arbitration tribunals, such as WIPO, the USPTO, and the ITC in Section 337 investigations. We have litigated over 100 IP disputes in federal court.

Representing awards company in connection with intellectual property dispute wherein a Defendant has misappropriated the company’s trademarks in connection with advertising after parties.

Represented a decorated scientist and professor of medicine in a lawsuit brought by a biotech company alleging that he had infringed certain patents in developing breakthrough immunotherapies for the treatment of cancer. The Plaintiff’s theory of patent-infringement reached well beyond the scientist’s work and threatened to bring important cancer research throughout the field to halt. DTO secured a claim construction ruling that the patents do not cover induced pluripotent stem cells, the technology its client uses as a foundation for his work. Using that order and information obtained in discovery, DTO positioned the patent-infringement case for a likely dismissal on summary judgment under equitable estoppel and more traditional noninfringement and invalidity defenses. The Defendant refused to provide key discovery relating to the equitable estoppel defense. But after DTO won a motion to compel production of that discovery, the Defendant promptly dismissed the case with prejudice, representing a complete victory for DTO’s client.

Represented multiple Defendants in over a dozen copyright cases brought by fabric houses and designers alleging infringing use of a fabric design in a garment sold online or in a brick-and-mortar store. 

Represented Plaintiff automobile company in a patent infringement lawsuit alleging that Defendant’s wheels infringed certain design patents. After months of intense litigation, the case was resolved amicably.

DTO lawyer, Will Delgado, was brought in to try this patent infringement case on behalf of Defendant. At the time of trial, Defendant had already stipulated to infringement, so the trial focused on damages. At trial, Plaintiff attempted to secure a finding of “willful infringement’ and a total award approaching $5 million. Instead, the jury returned a finding of “no willful infringement” and a verdict of less than $200,000. On appeal, Plaintiff argued the district court had improperly instructed the jury on the issue of willfulness and asked that the case be remanded for further proceedings on that issue. DTO lawyers convinced the Federal Circuit to affirm the trial court’s jury instruction, leaving the much smaller award intact, and ending any further action.

Chambers USA 2024 Guide

“It’s the most responsive firm we have ever worked with; their ability to anticipate our issues and concerns is unparalleled.”

 

“DTO are excellent, aggressive, responsive lawyers with top-notch training and experience.”

 

“I really like their writing. It is creative and straightforward. They get their point across quickly.”