The Daily Journal has named Keker, Van Nest & Peters partners Christa Anderson, Brian Ferrall, Ashok Ramani, and Robert Van Nest among its list of top intellectual property lawyers in California. To read the full report, click here.
The Daily Journal highlighted Ms. Anderson’s patent wins for clients New Relic and Veeva, and her process in preparing for trial. “There’s logistics: you need to become very organized. You work out a marching plan,” she said. Also: “How much time will you have for your presentation? Which are the important documents? Once you’re in trial, things move so quickly that you don’t have time to waste minutes revising your plan.”
The report highlighted Mr. Ferrall’s recent patent wins for Comcast, including a case where the plaintiff Two-Way Media had asserted the same patents against AT&T and won a $28 million verdict. For Comcast, he successfully argued that those same patents were abstract and invalid. “Two-Way is one of my prouder wins,” he said. “We were pretty pleased we were able to invalidate those patents.”
The paper highlighted Mr. Ramani’s $2.8 million patent trial win for TEK Global in a long running competitor dispute over tire repair kits. “It’s been a long, difficult road for our client,” he said. “They previously lost their patent, tagged for infringement and lost their injunction. This is a reversal of that.” His advice to young lawyers is to appear in court as much as possible. “I’ve tried 16 cases. To me, that’s the most important thing a young person can do.”
The Daily Journal called Mr. Van Nest the “titan of tech litigation,” noting his colossal copyright wins for Google against Oracle and Arista against Cisco. “In both cases Van Nest essentially contented that a tech company traded away its ability to claim ownership over a technological innovation because the company benefited more by making the technique ubiquitous and expanding its reach, increasing the visibility of its own products, than by keeping it to themselves.”