WORLDWIDE

Award category: Technology Law Team of the Year

Kirkland & Ellis

Reason for nomination:

The Intellectual Property Practice Group of Kirkland & Ellis LLP has extensive experience working with some of the world's largest technology companies. Kirkland represents technology clients in all forms of intellectual property matters, including patent and trademark litigation, outsourcing and other technology transactions. Many of the Firm's lawyers are engineers and scientists, trained and experienced in a variety of technical disciplines.

In June 2009, Kirkland was honored with the Award for Excellence in IP Litigation from international legal rating firm Chambers & Partners.

Kirkland achieved several significant victories for technology companies in the last year, including the following representative highlights:

DIRECTV

Rembrandt Data Technologies, LP brought a sweeping lawsuit against Kirkland client DIRECTV, Inc. and several other defendants including Canon and Hewlett Packard, and alleged infringement of four patents related to modem technology. Rembrandt asserted that any manufacturer or user of modems that operated under the standards established by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU-T V.34 or ITU-T) was liable for infringement of Rembrandt's patents. Operating under the fast-paced conditions required in the Eastern District of Virginia, the Kirkland team successfully narrowed the number of asserted patents from four to two. Several defendants settled with Rembrandt, but Kirkland moved for summary judgment on behalf of DIRECTV. Kirkland asserted two non-infringement defenses. On June 17, 2009, a judge granted DIRECTV summary judgment on both of its non-infringement defenses, and ended the case that had been filed just eight months earlier.

Micron Technology

On February 2, 2009, Kirkland client Micron Technology Inc. negotiated a favorable settlement of a patent litigation with Mosaid Technologies Inc. Kirkland's previous success against Mosaid, in which Kirkland represented Samsung and Infineon Technologies in a case involving many of the same patents, strengthened Micron's position. In the Samsung/Infineon litigation, Kirkland successfully argued for summary judgment on several of the asserted patents and greatly narrowed the scope of Mosaid's claims. Under the settlement agreement with Mosaid, Micron received a 10-year license to Mosaid patents covering Micron's dynamic random access memory, Flash, and other memory and image sensor products in return for a series of fixed payments to Mosaid.

Samsung

On October 14, 2008, Kirkland scored a victory for clients Motorola and Samsung, and other aligned parties, in the widely reported Broadcom/Qualcomm litigation. Broadcom filed a patent infringement action against Qualcomm at the International Trade Commission, and alleged Qualcomm induced infringement by selling semiconductor chips to cell phone manufacturers, and that the manufacturers were direct infringers. Kirkland successfully obtained a stay of the Limited Exclusion Order from the Federal Circuit and scored a complete victory.

Alcatel-Lucent

In June 2008, a federal judge in California upheld a jury's finding of infringement of two of Kirkland client Alcatel-Lucent's patents, and ordered Microsoft to pay $511.6 million in damages and interest. The jury verdict originally awarded $368 million in damages. The jury verdict was the second-biggest patent award of 2008.