Matt Werdegar is an experienced trial lawyer who helps his clients navigate complex, intellectual property disputes. Mr. Werdegar also is often called upon to assist with high-stakes disputes involving breach of contract, fraud, breach of fiduciary duty, and unfair competition claims. Whatever the subject matter, Mr. Werdegar focuses on his clients’ ultimate objectives and crafts novel, pragmatic litigation strategies to meet those objectives.
Mr. Werdegar has handled complex intellectual property and civil litigation matters in state and federal courts across the country and before the International Trade Commission. He has successfully tried a variety of cases to verdict and won favorable decisions before both state appellate courts and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Mr. Werdegar repeatedly has been recognized for his skillful advocacy in intellectual property and business cases. He has been listed in Best Lawyers in America for intellectual property and patent litigation since 2011. And he has been recognized as a Northern California Super Lawyer for business litigation since 2014.
Mr. Werdegar also dedicates substantial time to a number of community and educational organizations. He serves on the board of OneJustice, a California state-wide legal nonprofit dedicated to expanding access to legal services to those in need. He also serves as an instructor for Stanford Law School’s trial advocacy program.
Symantec v. Zscaler
We represented Zscaler in parallel infringement suits brought by Symantec in the District of Delaware asserting 14 patents against Zscaler’s network-security platform. We succeeded in transferring both cases to the Northern District of California, invalidating several patents on motions to dismiss in District Court, and eliminating additional claims in proceedings before the Patent Office. As a result, we settled the remainder of the litigations very favorably before trial.
EMC Corporation v. Pure Storage Inc.
We defended data storage innovator Pure Storage Inc. in multi-patent litigation filed by its Fortune 500 rival EMC Corporation in the District of Delaware. EMC’s asserted patents related to various data storage technologies, including technology for deduplicating data. We prevailed on two of the five patents in suit prior to trial, and obtained a jury verdict of non-infringement as to two others following a seven-day jury trial. We then won partial judgment as a matter of law and a new trial on invalidity as to EMC’s one remaining asserted patent. Shortly following the court’s order granting a new trial, Pure Storage and EMC reached a global settlement.
CA, Inc. d/b/a CA Technologies v. New Relic, Inc.
We defended software analytics company, New Relic, Inc. from patent infringement allegations brought by enterprise software giant CA in the Eastern District of New York. We won summary judgment of non-infringement on CA’s principal patent claim. We successfully settled the remainder of the case shortly before trial.
American Medical Response Inc. et al. v. Paramedics Plus, et al.
We defended Paramedics Plus from American Medical Response’s (AMR) claims of anticompetitive unfair business practices. After losing the competitive bidding process for Alameda County’s emergency medical services transportation contract to its much smaller rival Paramedics Plus, AMR accused our client of violating California's predatory pricing law, Business & Professions Code Section 17043, in its bid to win the 911 ambulance contract. Despite a minimal amount of precedent, we were able to preserve the statute’s intent, which is to safeguard healthy competition by protecting smaller companies from larger rivals. We received a unanimous 12-0 jury verdict in favor of our client.
Plaintiff v. Cepia, LLC
A toy developer sued our client Cepia for allegedly using misappropriated trade secrets to develop Cepia’s award-wining line of ZhuZhu robotic toys. We obtained Rule 11 sanctions for the pleading of factually baseless allegations as well as the dismissal of five of the plaintiff’s six claims. Shortly thereafter, the plaintiff agreed to dismiss the final claim and issue a public acknowledgement of no misconduct and independent development by Cepia.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company v. Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation
We represented TSMC against China's then-leading semiconductor manufacturer, SMIC, in the largest trade secret misuse case tried to date. SMIC owed its very existence to technology stolen from our client. Following a jury verdict on liability in favor of TSMC, SMIC agreed to pay $200 million in cash and approximately $130 million of its company stock. The case serves as precedent for the strong protection afforded by California's trade secret statute, even where the actual theft occurred in Asia.
Rembrandt Technologies, Inc. v. Comcast Cable Communications, LLC
We defended Comcast in a nine-patent case involving high-speed Internet and digital TV services. Rembrandt originally filed the case in the Eastern District of Texas, but in conjunction with other co-defendants, we obtained multi-district consolidation and transfer to the District of Delaware. Based upon claim construction rulings, Rembrandt conceded non-infringement of eight of the nine patents, preserving only its right to appeal the claim construction as to the ninth. The Federal Circuit then upheld the claim construction on that last patent, resulting in non-infringement. We also helped Comcast secure an exceptional-case determination and a resulting award of over $10 million in fees and costs.
Maritime Association v. Miniace
We successfully defended an individual in an Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) action brought by her deceased husband’s employer. The employer sought to recoup the $10 million insurance proceeds paid to our client upon her husband's death. After a two-week court trial, judgment was awarded in favor of our client. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed the judgment.
Commercial Property v. Mortgage Corporation
We represented the owners of a Silicon Valley commercial office building in a dispute over unlawful mortgage servicing practices. We won a complete victory at the jury trial, collecting a verdict of $7.5 million in actual damages plus $30 million in punitive damages. The case was favorably settled prior to appeal.
September 18, 2019
Matthew Werdegar of Keker, Van Nest & Peters examines current US efforts to curtail China’s theft of trade secrets and considers whether and what additional steps companies should take to protect themselves Read more
09/02/2016
A federal court in Delaware threw out a March 2016 verdict holding that Pure Storage must pay $14 million for violating an EMC software patent. Read more
09/02/2016
The ruling keeps alive Pure Storage’s challenge of the unfavorable verdict in which jurors decided EMC, the largest computer storage company in the world, was owed $14 million in royalties by its rival, a Mountain View, Calif.-based outfit that went public last year. Read more
09/26/2014
Matthew Werdegar and Ben Hur offer advice to in-house counsel on how to best manage e-discovery. Read more
06/28/2013
Christa Anderson and her team's jury verdict helps Paramedics Plus retain their emergency transportation contract in Alameda County. Read more
06/21/2013
The case concerned California’s Predatory Pricing Statute (Business & Professions Code § 17043). Read more
09/14/2012
Keker & Van Nest wins a complete victory in patent infringement case. Read more
08/28/2012
The firm receives top rankings for bet-the-company, intellectual property, criminal defense, securities, commercial, legal malpractice, and appellate litigation. Read more
05/04/2012
Jeff Chanin and Matthew Werdegar convinced the plaintiff to voluntarily dismiss his law suit. Read more
12/20/2011
Keker & Van Nest filed an amicus brief on behalf of eBay Inc., Facebook Inc., Google Inc., InterActiveCorp and Yahoo Inc. Read more
09/01/2011
Keker & Van Nest partners were recognized in more than ten categories, including bet-the-company litigation, criminal defense, and intellectual property litigation. Read more
06/29/2011
Matt Werdegar, Ashok Ramani and Jeff Chanin offer leaders of venture-backed companies advice on how to minimize litigation. Read more
11/16/2010
Keker & Van Nest represented Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) Read more
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"Planning for E-Discovery: Federal courts in California Have Developed New Rules and Guidelines," California Lawyer, 2014, co-authored with Ben Hur
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"3 E-discovery Trends You Can't Afford to Ignore," Corporate Counsel, 2014, co-authored with Ben Hur
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"Grow Your Business, Not Your Legal Bills: Avoid Litigation While Hiring New Talent, Managing Customer Data, and Protecting IP," 2011