Our Practice
Our practice focuses on diverse areas of complex civil litigation including intellectual property (patent, trademark and copyright), complex contract and commercial matters, antitrust and unfair competition, class actions, appellate practice and professional liability.
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Intellectual Property Litigation
Durie Tangri lawyers have both breadth and depth of experience in all types of intellectual property cases, including pretrial, trial, and appellate work in patent, trade secret, copyright, and trademark cases. While we are a small firm, our lawyers have been involved in a disproportionate share of the most interesting and important IP disputes throughout the country.
Jump to: Copyright Cases | Patent Cases | Trade Secret Cases | Trademark Cases
COPYRIGHT CASES
Durie Tangri is never far from the front in groundbreaking copyright cases. The firm’s lawyers have represented clients such as Linus Torvalds, 321 Studios, Hummer Winblad (one of the investors in Napster), Grokster, Dmitri Sklyarov (the first individual ever criminally charged under the DMCA), Carol Shloss (an English professor seeking declaratory judgment that she has the right to quote from letters involving James Joyce in a biography of his daughter), and Jon Johansen (the original author of deCSS) in copyright matters. At present, the firm represents Google in connection with Google’s project of scanning books in major academic library collections; Linden Labs, in a case alleging in-world copying of virtual objects in Second Life; and Troy Augusto in a pending Ninth Circuit appeal defending our trial court win establishing the fair use right to resell lawfully obtained promotional CDs. Mike, Mark, Daralyn, and Joe have played key roles in many of the defining copyright cases of the past 10 years, including Grokster, Napster, LimeWire, Perfect 10, UMG v. Augusto, and Google Book Search.
We are frequent commentators on cutting edge copyright and internet issues. Mark is one of the preeminent academic voices on technology issues, and Joe is a member of the American Bar Association IP Section's Copyright Reform Task Force.
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We represent companies in patent litigation across the country in cases ranging from biotechnology to e-commerce, solar technology to firewalls. Our clients include leading companies like Genentech, Comcast, PG&E and Ticketmaster as well as rising startups like Palo Alto Networks, Guidewire Software, and Sunlink.
We recognize that different clients have different needs, and we eschew a one-size-fits-all approach. We start every engagement by asking our clients to define what constitutes success for them. The answer to that question allows us to tailor our litigation strategy to our clients’ specific situations. For some clients and cases, the goal may be to win the case – period. For smaller, startup clients facing bet-the-company litigation against bigger, better-funded competitors, the cost of litigation may itself threaten the company’s continued viability. In those situations, we may try to get traction on critical issues at the outset of the case while aggressively containing costs through proactive discovery management. Or we may put more resources into an offensive strategy, targeting a larger opponent’s much larger revenue base. Other clients may simply want to settle as cheaply as possible. In those cases, we try to figure out the pressure points for settlement without getting distracted by expensive side-shows.
Our lawyers’ experience allows us to design and execute on this strategic approach to patent litigation. Our firm has seven partners and two associates with extensive patent experience, and Daralyn and Mark have been singled out as one of the top 50 intellectual property lawyers in California and as one of the top 25 intellectual property lawyers in California respectively.
Daralyn was part of the trial team that defeated Chiron’s claim against Genentech’s blockbuster anti-cancer drug Herceptin, noted as one of the top 10 defense verdicts of that year by the National Law Journal. She and Mark currently represent Genentech in litigation involving a fundamental patent on making monoclonal antibodies which results in hundreds of millions of dollars in licensing revenue.
Daralyn has had similar success for Comcast. In 2006, Daralyn secured a defense victory for Comcast in the Eastern District of Texas, beating back a $2.2 billion claim relating to Voice over IP, a ruling she successfully defended in the Federal Circuit the following year. She led the team that won summary judgment of obviousness on behalf of Comcast in the Northern District of California against Finisar in 2008.
Mark represents clients before the United States Supreme Court and the Federal Circuit. His expertise has been recognized by unusual bedfellows: he wrote an amicus brief on behalf of Cisco, Google, IBM, Micron, and Microsoft regarding the proper standards for claim construction in Phillips v. AWH, much of the reasoning of which was adopted by the en banc Federal Circuit. Mark also applies his expertise to cases before district courts, recently winning summary judgment on patent license and exhaustion issues for Genentech in litigation over core monoclonal antibody patents.
Ragesh represented Intel in an inventorship dispute; after a bench trial, the judge rejected his opponent's claims of invention and granted summary judgment on all of plaintiff's state law causes of action. Following a remand, the case resulted in a hung jury and, ultimately, judgment as a matter of law for defendants on all of plaintiff’s state law claims, such that plaintiff received no monetary recovery. Ragesh also helped represent Broadcom in ITC litigation seeking to exclude from the United States infringing phones made by competitor Qualcomm and its downstream customers.
Mike represented InterTrust in multipatent digital rights management software litigation against Microsoft, resulting in a settlement and license exceeding $450 million, Tegal in an Eastern District of Virginia trial win, and Harris Semiconductors. He recently represented Sunlink in multi-patent litigation over solar technology brought by its much larger competitor Sunpower, and reached a resolution that achieved the client’s goal at a fraction of the cost of predecessor counsel.
Clem helped represent PSI, a maker of IBM-compatible computers and operating systems, in defending patent litigation brought by IBM. After PSI filed antitrust counterclaims against IBM, the case ended when IBM acquired PSI for $150 million. Clem was a part of the team that won summary judgment of invalidity on a patent lawsuit against Intel brought in the Eastern District of Texas, and wrote the brief that led to the finding of invalidity.
Ryan was part of the team that won summary judgment of invalidity for Intel in the Eastern District of Texas, taking the expert deposition that was instrumental to the finding of invalidity. He was also part of the team that won summary judgment of invalidity and non-infringement for BlueArc in a patent lawsuit brought by Network Appliance in the Northern District of California, arguing one of the motions for summary judgment, and helped to defend Wells Fargo and PG&E in multi-patent litigation over speech recognition technology brought by Phoenix Solutions, each of which resulted in favorable settlements.
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The firm’s lawyers have extensive experience in all aspects of trade secret litigation and have been involved in several high profile cases involving employee mobility.
Ragesh was a key part of the team that represented Google in seeking to invalidate a noncompete agreement imposed by Microsoft on Kai Fu Lee, a new Google employee. At the preliminary injunction hearing, the judge agreed to let Mr. Lee go to work for Google. He and Mike represented Cadence Design Systems in trade secret and copyright claims against its primary competitor, Avant!, resulting in recovery of nearly $465 million and criminal convictions of several Avant! employees. Ragesh was also involved in representing 13 former employees of Informix who were accused of misappropriation of trade secrets when they moved to Oracle. In the midst of a preliminary-injunction hearing, the case was settled with an apology from the plaintiff.
Daralyn was part of the trial team that defended Tiara and several of its engineers against claims of trade secret misappropriation. The company and all but one employee were completely exonerated; one defendant was ordered to pay $1. Daralyn and Clem represented a group of venture capital firms who invested in a startup and were accused of trade secret misappropriation by a former consultant to the company. Following a multi-week jury trial, the defendants were found not liable for trade secret misappropriation, and only ordered to pay the consultant’s contractual fee.
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Durie Tangri attorneys are never far from the “bleeding edge” of online trademark litigation. The firm’s lawyers have represented Google in five cases defending the legality of its use of Internet keywords to trigger advertising against attack by trademark owners. Mike and Joe currently represent Google in a pending putative class action challenging the AdSense for Domains product brought by Vulcan Golf challenging the practice of domain name "parking"; the district court has denied class certification. The firm represents also Linden Labs in a putative class action on behalf of creators of virtual products marketed inside Second Life. Mark represented Google in filing an amicus brief successfully urging the Second Circuit to establish new law favorable to our client regarding pop-up advertising. Mark and Mike also represented a consortium of yoga studios defending their rights to use particular poses against a claim of copyright and trademark infringement by Bikram Choudhury. Johanna was part of the team that defended Lindows.com in a suit brought by Microsoft alleging trademark infringement of the “windows” mark.
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Complex Contract & Commercial Litigation
Durie Tangri lawyers have a long history of handling a broad array of complex civil litigation, including disputes relating to contracts, trade secrets, employee mobility, corporate control, real estate, and false advertising. Our lawyers have been involved in well-known cases, and we are widely respected for the quality of our writing and oral advocacy on behalf of clients in difficult civil cases.
We currently represent corporations as well as individuals. Our corporate clients include Google, PG&E, Ticketmaster, Guidewire, and Palo Alto Networks. Each of us has substantial experience in this arena. Daralyn and Ryan represent the California State University system in class action litigation seeking to roll back fee increases across the entire statewide system. Ragesh , Josh, and Jay represent key personnel in the computer services field accused of unfair competition and misappropriation of trade secrets when they joined a competitor firm. Mark took over representation of a maker of RFID chips after summary judgment had been granted against it on its false advertising claims. He persuaded the Ninth Circuit to reverse the grant of summary judgment, and on remand he and Ragesh won an injunction and damages. Josh and Johanna are defending executives of an online social advertising network against in a lawsuit brought by an individual who claims to be a co-founder. Johanna also represents an individual in a lawsuit filed by his former employer alleging misappropriation of trade secrets. Ragesh and Mike have represented venture capital firms in disputes over ownership and control of companies, including a trial win for Hummer Winblad Partners in Delaware Chancery Court over control of Napster, and Johanna also has represented venture capital firms and individual board members of those firms in ownership and control disputes. Clem has conducted arbitrations and tried cases on claims relating to breach of contract, trade secret misappropriation, breach of fiduciary duty, unfair competition, interference with contractual relations and others for clients such as Topcon Positioning Systems, a major venture capital firm, and a fortune 100 provider of computer components. Johanna defended the founder of a dental management services company accused of misappropriating trade secrets, defaming and unfairly competing with his former company, and obtained summary adjudication, which led to a favorable settlement, on behalf of a non-profit organization that hosts international exchange students.
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Antitrust & Unfair Competition Litigation
Durie Tangri lawyers are experienced in a variety of antitrust matters. Mark wrote the book – literally – on IP and antitrust law. We have represented both plaintiffs and defendants in a wide variety of industries, and in criminal as well as civil antitrust complaints. We also counsel clients on antitrust matters including compliance, amnesty issues, and participation in standard-setting and trade organizations.
Ragesh and Mark represented Hummer Winblad, a venture capital firm that challenged concerted efforts by recording companies to restrain competition in online music distribution as part of the In re Napster litigation. Mark successfully defeated a motion to dismiss by the recording industry, and Ragesh helped steer the case to an extremely favorable settlement. Ragesh also helped defend Honda in a series of class-action lawsuits in both state and federal courts and was part of the team that defended Visa against antitrust claims relating to its network rules.
Mark helped defend Impax a generic pharmaceutical manufacturer, pursue antitrust counterclaims based on a novel antitrust-theory of “product-hopping,” defeating a motion to dismiss in a case of first impression. Daralyn brought antitrust claims on behalf of Impax against a patent owner that engaged in inequitable conduct to acquire its patent; the case resolved on favorable terms.
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Class Action Litigation
Durie Tangri attorneys have extensive experience in defending class action cases, including some of the largest putative classes in the world. We represent Google in a nationwide class action challenging advertising pricing methods and an international class action defending against claims of copyright infringement arising from Google's program of scanning works in major library collections. The class in that case includes every copyright holder in the nation, as well as foreign rightsholders. We represent the California State University system in a class action challenging CSU’s response to the California budget crisis. We also represent Linden Lab, operators of the Second Life virtual world, in defending against class claims of copyright and trademark infringement based on in-world transactions between users.
Mike and Joe represented Google in defeating class certification in nationwide allegations that Google’s AdSense program infringed the rights of all trademark holders, and Daralyn, Ryan and Clem defended Google against allegations of click fraud on behalf of every Google advertiser. Johanna was part of the team that represented Looksmart in the same click fraud case, and that also defended Looksmart in a class action alleging violation of California law in connection with advertising online gambling. Johanna was also part of the team that obtained summary judgment on behalf of PacificCare in a national class action alleging RICO violations against HMOs.
Ragesh represented American Honda in a multi-district and multi-state antitrust action relating to the grey-market importation of new motor vehicles from Canada, leading to an opinion from the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit reversing the district court's grant of class certification. Daralyn also defended Gap, Inc. against claims brought on behalf of fifty thousand garment workers arising out of factory conditions in Saipan.
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Professional Liability Litigation
Durie Tangri attorneys have represented many leading law firms, both Bay Area based and nationwide, in defense of professional liability claims. Our breadth of substantive disciplines and commitment to a "generalist" approach to litigation make us well-suited to step into virtually any professional liability claim, regardless of the underlying field of law. We have defended claims related to patent prosecution and patent litigation, general corporate advice rendered to both start-up and established companies, advice regarding employee benefit plans, and to a wide variety of civil litigation issues.
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Appellate Practice
We are frequent appellate practitioners, both in appeals from our own trial court cases and in cases where we are first retained at the appellate stage. Mark has filed numerous amicus briefs before the United States Supreme Court, the Federal Circuit, the California Supreme Court, and various Courts of Appeals, and has argued six cases before the Federal Circuit. Mike and Mark represented Grokster at both the Ninth Circuit and the U.S. Supreme Court in the landmark MGM v. Grokster case. A sampling of our appellate victories includes:
Caritas v Comcast (Federal Circuit) -- We represented Comcast in defending against patent infringement claims brought by Caritas, and successfully defended our non-infringement win in the Federal Circuit.
Perfect 10 v. Visa et al. (Ninth Circuit): We successfully defended our summary judgment victory on behalf of financial services companies against claims of secondary copyright infringement based on processing payments for alleged infringers.
Cadence v. Avant! (Ninth Circuit, California Supreme Court): We represented Cadence Design Systems in one of the largest civil and criminal trade secret cases in California history.
MGM v. Grokster (U.S. Supreme Court, Ninth Circuit): We represented Grokster in groundbreaking copyright litigation over peer-to-peer filesharing technology.
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