Stephen Neal

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Cooley Obtains Summary Judgment for Qualcomm in Patent Infringement Lawsuit

April 5, 2022

Cooley achieved a significant victory for longtime client Qualcomm when US District Judge Paul G. Byron of the US District Court for the Middle District of Florida granted the firm’s motion for summary judgment in a contested patent infringement lawsuit, ParkerVision v. Qualcomm. Lawyers Stephen Smith, Matthew Brigham, Eamonn Gardner, Dena Chen, Jeffrey Karr, Priya Viswanath and Benjamin Lin led the Cooley team advising Qualcomm. Brigham and Gardner argued the motion for summary judgment, with assistance from the larger team.

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Stephen Smith
Partner, Washington, DC
Matthew Brigham
Of Counsel, Palo Alto
Eamonn Gardner
Partner, Colorado
Dena Chen
Partner, Palo Alto
Jeffrey Karr
Of Counsel, Palo Alto
Priya B. Viswanath
Special Counsel, Palo Alto
Stephen Neal
Chairman Emeritus, Palo Alto
Kathleen Goodhart
Partner, San Francisco
Erin Trenda
Partner, San Diego
Rich Nieva
Senior Paralegal, Palo Alto
Cassandra Reed
Paralegal Specialist, Palo Alto

Related Practices & Industries

Global cross-license achieved for Gevo in long-running biofuels patent case

August 27, 2015

Few patent cases make it all the way to the Supreme Court. Even fewer involve a dispute in which a company's very survival is at stake. Since 2011, our client Gevo, a pioneer in the biofuels industry, and Butamax, a joint venture of giants BP and DuPont, had been trading blows, filing close to a dozen patent suits against each other. Butamax initially brought suit in the District of Delaware in an attempt to knock Gevo out of the emerging market for isobutanol alternative energy. In that case, the court granted summary judgment of noninfringement in favor of Gevo, prompting Butamax to appeal. On appeal, the Federal Circuit rejected the district court's claim construction and issued a new claim construction that vacated the noninfringement ruling.

In response, Cooley took the case to the US Supreme Court and, in January 2015, the high court granted our petition for writ of certiorari, vacating the judgment against Gevo and remanding the case back to the Federal Circuit for further consideration. This decision, and numerous other victories including key summary judgment victories, paved the path for Gevo to reach a favorable global patent cross-license and settlement agreement with Butamax. The agreement forms a partnership between the two biofuel companies aimed at leveraging one another's technology.

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Dr. Michelle Rhyu
Partner, Palo Alto
Stephen Neal
Chairman Emeritus, Palo Alto
Bonnie Weiss McLeod
Of Counsel, Washington, DC
Daniel Knauss
Partner, Palo Alto
Adam Pivovar
Partner, Washington, DC
Andrew Keith
Special Counsel, Washington, DC

Related Practices & Industries

Complete win for Gilead Sciences in dispute involving breakthrough SOVALDI treatment

July 1, 2014

When F. Hoffmann-La Roche sought to strip Gilead of its rights to a blockbuster drug, Gilead turned to Cooley. At stake were Gilead's exclusive rights to sofosbuvir (Sovaldi), approved by the FDA in 2013 as a breakthrough drug for the treatment of hepatitis C. Within the first six months of going to market, Sovaldi earned nearly $6 billion in sales, making it one of the most successful drug launches in history.

Roche alleged exclusive rights based on an earlier collaboration agreement. Cooley presented this "bet the company" case before a panel of three arbitrators during a two-week arbitration hearing. In August 2014, the arbitration panel issued its award, ruling in favor of Gilead and finding that Roche failed to establish any of its contract or patent-based claims to sofosbuvir. This was a huge win for Gilead, with Sovaldi generating billions of dollars in revenue each year.

The Financial Times, The American Lawyer and its sister publications The Recorder and National Law Journal all profiled the victory when announcing Cooley as the winner of multiple litigation awards, including AmLaw's recent selection of the case as "Global Dispute of the Year: Commercial Arbitration."

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Stephen Neal
Chairman Emeritus, Palo Alto
Marty Schenker
Senior Counsel , San Francisco
Dr. Michelle Rhyu
Partner, Palo Alto
Jeffrey Karr
Of Counsel, Palo Alto
Daniel Knauss
Partner, Palo Alto

Related Practices & Industries

Pretrial Win for Gevo in Patent Suit

March 27, 2013

Palo Alto, Calif. – Cooley achieved a major victory when it secured a judgment of no infringement on behalf of leading renewable chemicals and advanced biofuels client Gevo in a patent suit brought by Butamax Advanced Biofuels, a joint venture between BP and DuPont.

On March 19, 2013, a Delaware federal judge issued a favorable claim construction ruling for Gevo, granting Gevo partial summary judgment of no infringement under the doctrine of equivalents, and ruling that two key claims of the Butamax patents were invalid. Although the Court did not grant summary judgment of no literal infringement, Butamax acknowledged that it could not prove literal infringement under the court's claim construction and agreed to stipulate to a judgment of no literal infringement.

In January 2011, Butamax filed a patent infringement suit against Gevo asserting two patents relating to the production of isobutanol, a four-carbon alcohol, in microorganisms. Gevo produces its isobutanol using proprietary recombinant yeast that is genetically engineered to produce it at a high yield. In June 2012, the court denied Butamax's request for a preliminary injunction against Gevo, a decision that was upheld by the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in December 2012. A trial date was set for early April 2013.

"This judgment marks yet another great step forward for Gevo," said Jim Brogan, partner and chair of the intellectual property group."The ruling enables this highly innovative company to continue to focus on its growth and the development of innovative biofuels products."

A separate patent re-examination team has obtained rejections of all challenged claims of the two asserted Butamax patents from the US Patent and Trademark Office.

Related contacts

Matthew Brigham
Of Counsel, Palo Alto
Andrew Keith
Special Counsel, Washington, DC
Daniel Knauss
Partner, Palo Alto
Bonnie Weiss McLeod
Of Counsel, Washington, DC
Stephen Neal
Chairman Emeritus, Palo Alto
Adam Pivovar
Partner, Washington, DC
Dr. Michelle Rhyu
Partner, Palo Alto

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