INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY FIRM ANALYSIS
Firm Briefings
litigation,” affirms another competitor about the life sciences powerhouse. The firm represents some of the market’s most prominent companies. The Depuy Synthes Companies of Johnson & Johnson use partner Jeffrey Olson for their patent litigation work. Olson is admired by one rival attorney for his “business-like approach and knowledge of his client’s products.” He has worked on several patent infringement suits for Depuy Synthes against Spinal Kinetics relating to cervical and lumbar spinal implants. “It would be an injustice to talk about Sidley’s patent litigation team and not mention Patricia Thayer,” states one colleague. “She is easily one of the best attorneys practicing today,” adds another attorney. She was lead counsel for firm client Conceptus in a case against Hologic, prevailing on all claims asserted by Conceptus regarding alleged infringement of patents related to medical devices for hysteroscopic sterilization. Clients praise Sidley for their “attention to detail and willingness to go to the extra mile for any of our needs.” Another client adds, “It’s one thing to have the best team in the industry, but another to foster the best possible relationship with their clients, and I felt that the IP litigation group at Sidley Austin understood how important that was to us.” Sterne Kessler Goldstein & Fox Few firms can match the technical expertise that Sterne Kessler Goldstein & Fox can deliver to their life sciences clients. The fullservice IP boutique has over 50 professionals staffed with advanced degrees in either science or engineering and continues to promote that culture with its developing attorneys. “They have started a trend within the industry where they hire younger attorneys and send them to graduate school to get advanced degrees in certain specialties,” explains one attorney. “It works both ways as they take engineers and send them to law school to get their JD. Slowly, more and more firms are beginning to adopt this approach.” On the litigation front, partner H Keeto Sabharwal leads the firm’s ANDA practice, which is known for its “outstanding representation of generic pharmaceutical clients,” according to a peer. He received a favorable settlement or Torrent Pharmaceuticals against Takeda Pharmaceuticals involving an ANDA dispute over the type 2 diabetes drug Actos. Sabharwal also obtained a favorable settlement for his client, Glenmark Generics, in an action against GlaxoSmithKline over Malarone, a drug used to treat and prevent Malaria. Sterne Kessler contains partners with very unique practices. Partner Kevin McCabe, who one attorney describes as “a man so smart that he should be inventing the patents he protects,” has one of the more intriguing practices in the industry. McCabe regularly counsels clients on the Hatch-Waxman litigation front and is a crucial part of the firm’s ANDA litigation group. He also spends a lot of his time in the reexamination spa ce, defending drug research company Chatterjee in an interference pertaining to recombinant enzymes. Thompson Hine Partner John Ryan brings over 25 years of experience in the life sciences industry to Thompson Hine’s industry group. “He knows
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his patent law and in addition, has a great relationship with the clients he assists,” says one competitor about Ryan. He was lead counsel for the Biotechnology Industry Organization in an amicus curiae brief filed in an appeal to the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Akamai Technologies, Inc. and The Massachusetts Institute of Technology v. Limelight Networks, Inc. The Federal Circuit ruled that a “single entity” need not perform all the steps in order to find patent infringement. Since Ryan has joined the firm, they have done life sciences patent work for one of the industry’s biggest companies, Johnson & Johnson. “The IP team at Thompson Hine has always been very active in several industries, but recently it has gravitated more to life sciences work because of their expertise in the area,” comments one rival. Weil Gotshal & Manges The patent litigation team at Weil Gotshal & Manges is having one of their most active years in the life sciences industry. “Their strength in commercial and appellate litigation has helped them gain a nice foothold within the life sciences industry,” explains one rival. The firm represented Genentech in a suit against Human Genome Science, obtaining dismissal of a patent suit concerning the patent rights to DNA sequences encoding key cancer therapeutics. For the past two years, partner Elizabeth Weiswasser has been Weil Gotshal’s leading life sciences patent litigator. A colleague of her believes she is “getting closer to being regarded as one of the best litigators in the country, and I know she is going to work hard to get to that point.” She counseled Wake Forest University against Smith & Nephew in a dispute concerning wound-care treatment patents. Williams & Connolly “Their litigation experience and talent is unmatched in the industry,” says one rival about IP litigation team at Williams & Connolly. The litigation boutique is staffed with “some of the country’s best trial attorneys for any patent-related issue,” comments another peer. The firm also has experience representing industry clients in front of the Supreme Court. They successfully represented MedImmune and received an 8-1 decision reversing a lower court’s decision that MedImmune was not required to break or terminate its license agreement with a patentee before it sued to challenge the licensor’s patent. Partners Bruce Genderson and Adam Perlman lead the group’s IP litigation team and are two of the industry’s “most well-respected lead counsels,” according to one practitioner. Genderson is considered by a colleague as “one of the best life sciences litigators in the last three or four years.” He is currently representing Bayer in an infringement suit brought by Biogen relating to Bayer’s genetically-engineered Interferon-Beta product for the treatment of multiple sclerosis. Perlman is first-chair in a suit for Eli Lilly and Princeton University in a case involving Lilly’s billion-dollar anticancer drug Alimta. William & Connolly has a lot of talented attorneys beyond their first-chair litigators. Partner David Berl, who one rival sees as “the ultimate supporting attorney who has the capability to be great lead counsel,” is making a name for himself within the industry. Berl has worked closely with Genderson and Perlman on many rep-
LMG LIFE SCIENCES 2013