Carter Pledger
Houston Office Phone: (713) 655-5606 Email Download vCard Print Bio to PDF
Education

University of Texas (J.D. – with honors)

Rice University (B.A. Computer and Electrical Engineering / Economics – magna cum laude)

Carter Pledger

Mr. Pledger focuses his practice on intellectual property protection in the computer and electronics industries, including patent, trademark, design patent, trade secret and copyright protection of ideas.

Comprehensive areas of technical expertise include consumer electronics, cellular phones, automobiles, toys, video and computer games, electronic stock trading, cryptography, medical devices, artificial diamonds, seismic surveying systems, financial services, electronic stock trading, global-positioning systems, and computer components such as networks, printers, terminals, power supplies and packaging, workstations, graphics processing, microprocessors and integrated circuits, and displays.  Comprehensive U.S. and foreign patent prosecution experience.

Before joining Susman Godfrey, Mr. Pledger worked as in-house counsel for the Digital Equipment Corp. and Microsoft. He has held memberships in most major intellectual property bar associations.

Notable Representations

Litigations

  • Moleculon v. CBS – represented defendant CBS for patent infringement relating to Rubik’s cube.
  • Dallas Cowboys, Inc. v. Pussycat Cinema and Dallas Cowboys, Inc. v. Freytag – represented plaintiff Dallas Cowboys in actions for copyright, trademark, and service mark infringements against movie producer and photographer.
  • General Electric v. DeBeers – represented defendant DeBeers in an action for patent infringement relating to industrial diamonds.
  • Norman IP Holdings v. Nikon Americas Inc. et al. – represented defendant Nikon in an action for patent infringement relating to imaging processors.
  • Biax v. HP – represented defendant HP in patent infringement relating to printer processors.
  • Northern Telecom, Inc. v. Intecom, Inc. – represented plaintiff Northern Telecom in an action for breach of covenant not to compete and theft of trade secrets.
  • Northern Telecom, Inc. v. Wang Labs – represented plaintiff Northern Telecom in patent infringement action relating to computer terminals.
  • Refac, Inc. v. IBM et al. – represented defendant Citibank in action for patent infringement relating to automated teller machines.
  • Interconnect Planning Corp. v. Feil – represented plaintiff IPC in patent infringement and theft of trade secrets action relating to specialized telephone equipment.
  • Fitz and Floyd, Inc. v. Wing On et al. – represented plaintiff Fitz & Floyd in prosecuting actions for counterfeiting related to ceramic products.
  • Eaton Corp. v. Veeco Inc. – represented defendant Veeco in action for patent infringement relating to semiconductor fabrication equipment.
  • Soveraign Software LLC v. J.C. Penney – represented defendant J.C. Penney in an action for patent infringement relating to online purchases.
  • NorthPeak Wireless LLC v. HP – represented defendant HP in an action for patent infringement relating to WiFi.
  • Bally Technologies v. Atari – represented defendant Atari in an action for patent infringement relating to video games.

Transactions

  • Consortium with Digital Equipment Corp., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and ATT to receive DARPA grant for research in networking.
  • International business transaction for development and licensing of software products between IBM (U.K.) and Digital Equipment Corp.
  • Agreement for development by Honeywell Inc. for keyboard for Digital Equipment Corp.
  • Numerous software development and license agreements.
  • Sold business unit of Digital Equipment Corp. to AVS Systems.
  • Purchased technology and business of Jupiter Systems relating to computer terminals
Professional Associations and Memberships
  • State Bar of Texas
  • State Bar of New York
  • State Bar of Massachusetts
  • Texas Bar Association
  • United States District Court, Southern District of Texas
  • United States District Court, Northern District of Texas
  • United States District Court, Eastern District of Texas
  • United States District Court, Connecticut
  • United States District Court, Southern District of New York
  • United States District Court, Eastern District of New York
  • United States Court of Appeals, First Circuit
  • United States Court of Appeals, Federal Circuit
  • United States Supreme Court