Kristin E. Hucek

We are defending Google in a series of patent cases brought by EcoFactor targeting Google’s Nest products, which are pending in the Northern District of California, which have been stayed pending inter partes review proceedings before the PTAB. We previously defended Google at trial in the Western District of Texas against patent claims brought by EcoFactor that involved four asserted patents, one of which EcoFactor dropped, and another of which we invalidated before trial. Two remaining patents proceeded to trial before Judge Albright. We obtained a jury verdict of non-infringement on one patent, and although the jury found one claim of the other infringed, we limited damages and eliminated running royalties.

We defended Gerard Williams, a celebrated chip designer, in a case brought by Apple claiming that he breached contractual agreements and misappropriated trade secrets when he founded Nuvia, Inc., a leading-edge microchip company ultimately acquired by Qualcomm. The case was successfully resolved before trial.

We defeated a class action lawsuit against Google, in which a putative nationwide class of restaurants alleged that Google’s food ordering products violated the Lanham Act and constituted counterfeiting. When granting our motion to dismiss, the court strongly implied that it would consider sanctioning the plaintiffs’ lawyers who had brought the case, identifying them by name in the court’s order. Plaintiffs thereafter dismissed their case with prejudice in exchange for an agreement that Google would not seek sanctions or fees.

We represent Qualcomm in a case brought by the FTC alleging that Qualcomm had failed to license its standard-essential patents at fair, reasonable and nondiscriminatory (FRAND) royalty rates and that Qualcomm had engaged in exclusionary conduct that increased its competitors’ costs and reduced their ability and incentive to innovate. Following a month-long bench trial, the district court issued an injunction that would have forced Qualcomm to license rival chip suppliers and renegotiate its existing licenses with cellphone makers. In August of 2020 the Ninth Circuit reversed the district court’s judgment and vacated the injunction.

We are defending Qualcomm against antitrust claims made by a putative class of 250 million cellphone users (one of the largest class actions ever) alleging that Qualcomm had inflated mobile device prices through its standard-essential patent licensing practices. The Ninth Circuit granted a petition for interlocutory review of the court’s class certification order, and ultimately overturned certification, ruling that the district court erred in its choice of law analysis and found that differences in state antitrust laws preclude the uniform application of California’s Cartwright Act to antitrust actions filed by consumers nationwide. On remand, we eliminated the remaining claims via subsequent motions to dismiss and summary judgment.

We defended Sutter Health from an antitrust lawsuit filed by California’s Attorney General in San Francisco Superior Court. The suit alleges that Sutter exploited its size and reach to extract “illegally inflated prices” from insurers, employers, and patients.