Susman Godfrey has a burgeoning and successful intellectual property litigation practice that features the pursuit and defense of claims for patent infringement and misappropriation of trade secrets cases, copyright and trademark infringement, and unfair competition. Susman Godfrey has recovered hundreds of millions of dollars on behalf of clients for infringement or misappropriation of their intellectual property. At the same time, Susman Godfrey has provided a vigorous, efficient, and effective defense to clients who are accused of violating intellectual property rights. In intellectual property cases Susman Godfrey brings to the table the same talent, deep trial experience, and unparalleled record of success that it brings to all litigation matters. Susman Godfrey handles IP litigation throughout the country. In patent cases, for example, Susman Godfrey has appeared in United States District Courts for the Northern and Central Districts of California, the Western District of Washington, the Middle District of Florida, the Southern District of New York, and all of the Districts in Texas. In some patent cases, clients have chosen Susman Godfrey to complement their usual outside patent counsel or to form teams in which Susman Godfrey acts as lead trial counsel with IP boutiques providing specialized support. For clients who prefer such a team-oriented approach that includes patent counsel with prosecution experience and expertise in matters before the PTO, Susman Godfrey has long-established working relationships with IP boutiques that it can recommend to clients in order to form a seamless team of skilled professionals. Susman Godfrey's unmatched ability to tackle and try complex and technical cases extends not only to patent cases, but also to a variety of other intellectual property matters. In numerous cases involving the misappropriation of trade secrets, copyright and trademark infringement, and claims for unfair competition under the Lanham Act and the common law, Susman Godfrey has achieved great results for clients with characteristic efficiency and excellence. When representing clients seeking to enforce their intellectual property rights, Susman Godfrey commonly works under contingent fee arrangements that enable clients to pursue cases they might otherwise be unable to pursue. Even for clients able to finance high-stakes patent litigation, contingent fee arrangements afford an opportunity to share the risk and compensate counsel for the results obtained rather than the hours worked. Whether pursuing claims arising from a single patent or an entire portfolio, and whether pursuing a single infringing company or engaging in a large-scale licensing and litigation program against multiple targets, Susman Godfrey brings to bear the talents and resources necessary to achieve success for its clients under fee arrangements that provide a mutual sharing of risks and rewards.   Susman Godfrey also represents defendants in patent infringement cases and other intellectual property litigation. The firm is willing and able to structure creative fee arrangements that emphasize risk-sharing and efficiency on the defense side as well, offering corporate clients the option to negotiate non-standard billing arrangements such as reverse contingent fees and flat rate fees. Given the often staggering costs of patent and other IP litigation, the combination of Susman Godfrey's litigation excellence and creative fee arrangements is simply unbeatable.   Susman Godfrey Gets Results Representative Patent Cases In December 2007, Susman Godfrey tried a patent case to a jury against Ariba on behalf of Boston-based Sky Technologies seeking $50 million in damages. The patents at issue relate to online commerce negotiations software. After two weeks of trial, during which invalidity, infringement and damages were tried, and on the verge of a jury verdict, Ariba settled for a confidential amount. In November 2007, Susman Godfrey achieved a confidential settlement on behalf of Burst.com, Inc., which was sued by Apple Inc. in a declaratory judgment action seeking to invalidate Burst's patents for the transmission of compressed audio and video. On behalf of Burst, Susman Godfrey responded to Apple's lawsuit with counterclaims for infringement of Burst's patents by Apple's immensely popular iPod, iTunes, and iTunes Store. The case was litigated in the Northern District of California. In October 2007, Susman Godfrey obtained a confidential settlement on behalf of Timeline, Inc., in its claims againstProClarity, Inc., a subsidiary of Microsoft Corporation, for infringement of Timeline's database software patents. Susman Godfrey defeated the defendants' challenge to the validity of the patents and settled the case on the eve of trial.The case was litigated in the Western District of Washington. In September 2007, Susman Godfrey went to trial in a patent infringement case in the Southern District of Texas on behalf of Two-Way Media, LLC against America Online, Inc. Two-Way Media asserted that AOL had infringed its patents on audio streaming technology, and AOL sought to invalidate the patents. Susman Godfrey settled the case for a confidential amount during trial. In November 2006, Susman Godfrey was hired as lead counsel to represent Rockwell Automation, a Fortune 500 company, in a major patent, antitrust and unfair competition dispute that had been ongoing in courts for four years. It was resolved approximately 12 weeks after Susman Godfrey was hired. The settlement not only resolved the dispute but also provided significant business benefits to Rockwell Automation. In March 2006, days before trial, IBM and Susman Godfrey's Boston-based client Sky Technologies, LLC settled a lawsuit brought by Sky in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas alleging patent infringement, breach of contract and misappropriation of trade secrets. In its trade secrets claim, Sky alleged that, after signing a confidentiality agreement, IBM received access to a broad range of trade secret information related to the operation of Sky's technology for facilitating online negotiation. Sky presented evidence that these trade secrets were later incorporated directly into IBM's own products and services. Under the terms of the settlement, reached two days before the parties were set to pick a jury, IBM agreed to license Sky's patents and technology for conducting online negotiation. The financial terms of the settlement are confidential. In December 2005, Susman Godfrey settled client SuperSpeed Software's patent infringement suit against Oracle Software in the Southern District of Texas. Susman Godfrey finalized the settlement with Oracle soon after the District Court issued a claim construction opinion that was highly favorable to SuperSpeed. Details of the settlement are confidential. The suit alleged that Oracle's software products, including Oracle Parallel Server and Real Applications Clusters, infringed a number of SuperSpeed patents on technology for increasing data processing speed by caching data in local memory. In 2005, Susman Godfrey defended Amazon.com in a patent infringement lawsuit filed by Soverain Software in the Eastern District of Texas.Soverain alleged that Amazon.com's websites infringed patents relating to basic e-commerce technology, including electronic shopping carts. Days before trial, and just after the Court granted one of Amazon.com's summary judgment motions, Susman Godfrey obtained a successful settlement of the case. Representative Trade Secrets Cases Susman Godfrey currently represents FLOORgraphics, Inc. (FGI), a pioneering in-store marketing company, in a dispute against competitor News America Marketing In-Store. The suit alleges that News America interfered with FGI's customers and clients through false statements and publications, by illegally accessing FGI's password-protected client website to steal confidential information, and by various other anti-competitive practices, such as orchestrating a simultaneous departure of its top sales force to work for News America. The case is pending before Judge Anne E. Thompson in the District of New Jersey. On September 25, 2007, Susman Godfrey secured a $30.5 million jury verdict in a trade-secret misappropriation case on behalf of its client, California-based UniRAM Technology, Inc. UniRAM alleged at trial that defendant Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp. (TSMC) had misappropriated UniRAM's trade secrets relating to the design of specialized computer memory devices known as "embedded DRAM." The jury's verdict came after a two-week trial in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, San Francisco Division, before Chief Judge Vaughn R. Walker. On April 14, 2008, after a bench trial, Chief Judge Walker rejected TSMC's counterclaim alleging that UniRAM had engaged in inequitable conduct in the prosecution of its patent. In early 2007, Susman Godfrey was hired by Emisphere Technologies, Inc., a New Jersey-based biotechnology company which was already engaged in litigation with pharmaceutical manufacturer Eli Lilly & Company in federal court in Indiana. Emisphere and Lilly had entered into a research collaboration involving the development of an orally administered form of parathyroid hormone. Emisphere asserted claims against Lilly for breach of contract and misappropriation of trade secrets related to Emisphere's confidential technology. Susman Godfrey was hired less than a year before the scheduled trial date and with less than a month remaining in the discovery period. Susman Godfrey promptly obtained an extension of the discovery deadline, engaged in rapid document discovery, and took numerous depositions of Lilly employees. The case was successfully settled in late 2007. Susman Godfrey represented ABB Lummus Global Inc. in a lawsuit filed by FMC Technologies, Inc. FMC alleged, among other things, that ABB Lummus Global had stolen FMC's trade secrets. FMC sought $90 million in damages. On July 22, 2005, the Court granted a motion for summary judgment filed by Susman Godfrey and dismissed FMC's trade secrets claim in full. In 2004, Susman Godfrey successfully represented SimDesk Technologies against First Genesis in a suit alleging misappropriation of trade secrets relating to SimDesk's proprietary server-side applications and server-client communications protocol. Susman Godfrey obtained a temporary restraining order and, after a bench trial, an injunction barring First Genesis from using the software and system at issue. Representative Copyright, Trademark, and Unfair Competition Cases In September 2007,Susman Godfrey won the appeal of a trial court's order granting summary judgment for their client, IntercontinentalExchange, Inc. ("ICE"), in a copyright infringement case brought by the New York Mercantile Exchange, Inc. ("NYMEX") in federal court in New York. NYMEX claimed that ICE violated its intellectual property rights and sued for copyright infringement, service mark infringement, violation of the federal and New York State Anti-Dilution statutes, and tortuous interference with contract. NYMEX sought tens of millions of dollars in damages and an order barring ICE from referencing NYMEX settlement prices. The Second Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the dismissal of all of NYMEX's claims against ICE. On April 11, 2005, Susman Godfrey client Gateway Inc. and Microsoft Corp. jointly announced that they had entered into an agreement to resolve legal issues between the two companies and work together on the marketing and development of Gateway personal computing products.As part of the agreement, Microsoft agreed to provide funds that Gateway expected to use for marketing initiatives, including advertising, sales training and consulting, as well as the research, development and testing of new Gateway products that could run Microsoft operating system and productivity software. The agreement provides for periodic Microsoft payments to Gateway totaling an aggregate amount of $150 million over four years. As part of this agreement, Gateway released all antitrust claims against Microsoft based on past conduct. The agreement announced on April 11 resulted from a mediation between the parties. In February 2000, Susman Godfrey was retained six weeks before trial to defend Medtronic, the nation's foremost developer and manufacturer of pacemakers, against antitrust, civil conspiracy, unfair competition, trade secrets and other tort and breach of contract claims brought by a competitor from whom Medtronic hired several key employees. Susman Godfrey settled the case on confidential terms favorable to Medtronic. If you believe you have a significant patent case to pursue, or you are the subject of patent infringement claims, or you have a case involving trade secrets, copyrights, trademarks or unfair competition, please contact us so that we can evaluate the case, tell you more about our intellectual property expertise, and discuss a fee arrangement best suited to your needs. *Results obtained depend on the facts of each case. Every case is different. Similar results may not be obtained in your case. Nothing on this web page is intended to represent that Susman Godfrey currently represents any particular clients mentioned because matters and client relationships naturally terminate from time to time. Note: Nothing on this web page is intended to represent that Susman Godfrey currently represents any particular clients mentioned because matters and client relationships naturally terminate from time to time.