Steven A. Hirsch

Robin Antonick, programmer of the John Madden Football video game for the Apple II that was released in 1988, alleged that EA owed him royalties on sales of all Madden Football video games over the last twenty-two years. Antonick claimed that all Madden games since 1990 are derivative works of the game he programmed, and he was therefore owed royalties under a 1986 contract with EA. On behalf of EA, we contended that none of Antonick’s source code, which was written for a more primitive platform and was outdated by the time it was released, was ever used in any subsequent Madden game. Although the jury found in favor of Antonik, U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer later entered judgment for EA, reversing the award and strongly discouraging similar suits based on additional versions of the game. Judge Breyer's ruling was affirmed on appeal.

We won summary judgment of non-infringement for Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, Ltd. and its subsidiary TSMC, North America in a long-running patent lawsuit brought by North Carolina semiconductor company, Ziptronix, Inc. Ziptronix had asserted nine patents and more than 500 patent claims directed to TSMC’s manufacturing of semiconductors for use in backside-illumination image sensors used predominantly in smartphone cameras. On behalf of TSMC, we defeated Ziptronix’s claims by arguing that the territorial limits of U.S. patent law prohibited reaching TSMC’s business transactions and manufacturing operations in Taiwan.

We won summary judgment for Davis, Wright Tremaine and Foley & Lardner, which were targeted by the Heller Ehrman bankruptcy estate. Law-firm bankruptcy trustees had argued unfinished hourly legal work is an asset that belongs to the failed firm, citing a 1984 California that involved the breakup of the Jewel, Boxer & Elkind firm. However, a federal judge rejected the 'Jewel' doctrine, and ruled Heller Ehrman cannot claim profits earned from hourly rate matters that its former partners brought with them to new law firms. On appeal, the Ninth Circuit certified the issue to the California Supreme Court, which issued a landmark decision holding that dissolved firms do not have a property interest in future fees for unfinished work, delivering a complete victory for our clients.

A Virginia federal judge granted our motion for summary judgment on all but one of Suffolk’s patent infringement claims, and issued a Daubert ruling striking the plaintiff’s expert damages opinion in its entirety. Soon after, Suffolk stipulated to invalidity on the last remaining claim. Suffolk had claimed that Google’s Adsense advertising placement technology, which selectively places paid advertisements for a company’s product or service on the Web page of another, used a similar protocol to the one under patent with Suffolk.

We represented Google in what Oracle claimed to be a multi-billion dollar patent and copyright war concerning the use of the Java programming language in Google’s Android platform. When Oracle bought Sun Microsystems in January 2010, it acquired Sun’s rights to Java. In August of that year, Oracle sued Google, claiming its Android mobile technology infringed Oracle patents and copyrights. We defended Google against all the patent and copyright claims, and also argued that the damage estimates were wildly inflated. Following repeated rounds of motions and briefing, the judge dismissed the bulk of Oracle’s copyright claims, and at trial the jury rendered a unanimous verdict rejecting all claims of patent infringement. Although the jury decided that Google infringed an Oracle copyright on nine out of millions of lines of source code, the case was a sweeping victory for Google, with zero damages. After an appeal by Oracle, the case returned to district court for a trial on fair use. After a two-week trial, the federal jury unanimously found that Google’s use of Oracle’s Java programming language in the Android operating system was a fair use, thereby rejecting Oracle’s claims of infringement in their entirety.

We successfully defended the Music Concourse Community Partnership from two consolidated actions. The actions sought to halt the creation of a $50 million underground parking facility in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. After two bench trials, the court declined to issue an injunction, which the California Court of Appeal affirmed.

We represented Genentech in a breach of contract and breach of fiduciary duty action. In the first trial, the jury hung 7-5 in favor of Genentech. In the retrial, the jury awarded compensatory and punitive damages. The California Supreme Court reversed the breach of fiduciary duty verdict, thereby throwing out the $200 million punitive-damages award.

We won a $5.5 million jury verdict against Chevron for wrongfully terminating and retaliating against a female petroleum engineer. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed the award.

We secured a favorable settlement for Electronic Arts Inc. (EA) in this groundbreaking antitrust and right of publicity class action. Current and former student-athletes claimed EA improperly used the athletes’ likenesses and biographical information in its NCAA Football and NCAA Basketball video games.

We defended a California county and certain of its Supervisors against claims that its land use decision regarding a Christian school violated the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA) and aspects of the US Constitution. After a multi-week trial in federal court, a jury resolved the case in our client’s favor, denying the school system's request for tens of millions in damages. The plaintiff appealed, but withdrew their appeal after receiving our appellate brief.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit appointed our firm to serve as pro bono amicus counsel to four victims of the Unabomber. The appeal concerned the constitutionality of an order to sell his writings to benefit victims. The court rejected the Unabomber’s First Amendment arguments and authorized an auction plan.

We defended at trial and on appeal a prominent Iranian businessman indicted for smuggling $8 million worth of Persian carpets. The case was won on appeal.