Find Lawyers in Dallas, Texas for Litigation - Intellectual Property
Practice Area Overview
IP is protected by specific laws relating to patents, trademarks, copyrights, and trade secrets; these laws acknowledge an innovator’s ownership of his or her novel creation and give that innovator the exclusive right, for a defined period of time, to use and benefit from it.
Litigation of IP matters takes several forms. One involves patents, which cover inventions on designs and products, as well as the processes through which they are manufactured or used. Patent infringement refers to the unauthorized use of a patented invention, at which point litigation can arise. A “Hatch-Waxman” litigation is a particular kind of patent dispute involving generic versus brand pharmaceutical products and processes and infringement of the patent(s) covering these.
Trademarks and copyrights also can be infringed. A trademark can be a symbol, logo, word, sound, color, or name that identifies the source of a product and distinguishes it from that of others. Copyrights protect works of authorship, such as writings, music, and art. Copyrights and trademarks grant holders exclusive rights to use their works, and an unauthorized use can lead to litigation. Trade secrets are information that companies keep secret to give them an advantage over competitors. Misappropriation of trade secrets is a typical litigation scenario when such information is taken without authority.
Licensing disputes can arise that relate to any of these protections. A licensing agreement is essentially a contract between an IP rights owner and an entity authorized to use such rights, usually in exchange for an agreed upon fee or royalty. The extent to which parties do or do not follow the terms of that contract often engenders this type of litigation.
Other kinds of IP litigation can include variations of the above, including trademark dilution, “cybersquatting,” pirated and “knock-off” commercial goods, domain name disputes, domestic and foreign customs seizures, and unfair competition.
IP assets are a valuable foundation of any successful venture, so when unauthorized use occurs, disputes are bound to arise.
Brad Caldwell is a principal at Caldwell Cassady & Curry. He is a trial lawyer who focuses on patent infringement and complex commercial litigation for both plaintiffs and defendants. Mr. Caldwell’s courtroom success before judges, juries, and arbitration panels includes cases involving digital media, telecommunications and computer networking, data security, computer imaging, medical devices, enterprise software, banking technology, and oilfield services. Mr. Caldwell consistently ...
Jason Cassady is a principal at Dallas’ Caldwell Cassady & Curry who focuses on intellectual property litigation and complex commercial litigation. Mr. Cassady provides clients with extensive federal trial experience, including courtroom victories in patent cases involving diverse technologies such as secure computer networking, integrated circuits, video game controllers, and computer operating systems. He also has represented parties on both sides of the aisle in areas such as dri...
Douglas A. Cawley is a Principal in the Dallas office of McKool Smith. For more than thirty years, he has been engaged in the trial of complex cases, and has handled major intellectual property matters throughout the United States and the world. He was lead counsel in trials resulting in National Law Journal top 100 jury verdicts in 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010. Mr. Cawley is a member of the American Intellectual Property Law Association and the American Bar Association Section on Intellectual P...
Trey Cox a litigation partner with Gibson Dunn. He is an accomplished and sought after advocate and trial lawyer. He has spent his entire professional life as a courtroom attorney and litigator helping clients resolve large, complicated and often high-profile business disputes. His courtroom experience is unusually broad and extensive. He has tried over 35 cases involving trade secrets, breach of fiduciary duty, securities fraud, product liability, trademark, insurance coverage, energy, oil a...
Bill Cramer protects his clients’ valuable rights in various aspects of intellectual property, including patent, trademark, copyright, and trade secret matters. Bill is an experienced litigator who represents plaintiffs and defendants in patent, trademark, and copyright infringement lawsuits in district courts throughout the United States. He also represents clients in trademark opposition and cancellation proceedings at the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB), inter partes review p...
Gary Cruciani is a Principal in McKool Smith’s Dallas office. He has handled complex commercial litigation for a wide variety of clients for more than 20 years. His commercial litigation expertise includes antitrust claims, oil & gas contracts, tax disputes, intellectual property and trade secret matters, construction claims, breach of fiduciary duty and partnership disputes, and general contract cases. Mr. Cruciani’s courtroom track record includes representing both plaintiff...
John Austin Curry is a principal at Caldwell Cassady & Curry. He primarily focuses his practice on patent infringement disputes. He has worked on high-technology cases involving electrical engineering and computer science technologies. Specifically, Mr. Curry has litigated and tried cases involving technology related to the manipulation of document architecture, systems and logic designed to facilitate the creation of secure communications, algorithms for efficient usage of routing cache,...
Juanita advises on a variety of matters, with a focus on safeguarding and protecting IP rights through trademarks and patents, patent and trade secret litigation, and inter partes review proceedings. In addition, she is skilled in performing IP due diligence for litigation funding transactions. Juanita also is a member of the team assisting the Special Compliance Coordinator appointed by the U.S. Department of Commerce to monitor, assess and report on the U.S. export control compliance of Zho...
Herb Hammond represents clients in intellectual property matters. He focuses his practice on litigation, licensing, and counseling in patent, trademark, copyright, trade secret, computer, and entertainment matters. Herb also acts as an arbitrator, mediator, and expert witness in intellectual property and high-tech cases. Herb is the author of the Texas Intellectual Property Handbook (2d ed), a treatise published by Juris Publishing, Inc., covering trade secrets, trademarks, copyrights, unfair...
Ryan Hargrave’s practice focuses on intellectual property disputes and complex commercial litigation in federal courts across the country, as well as the United States Patent and Trademark Office. She has successfully managed and tried matters spanning a broad range of technologies and industries, including pharmaceuticals, wireless networking, cellular networking, file sharing and storage, and downhole oilfield tools. Ryan is experienced and skilled in all aspects of complex litigation...
Jared Hoggan is a partner practicing in Munck Wilson Mandala’s technology/intellectual property law group. He has been recognized as a Texas Super Lawyer and Best Lawyer in America for his achievements in patent litigation. For nearly two decades, Jared has represented clients in patent cases and appeals in federal courts, as well as proceedings before the U.S. International Trade Commission. Jared has represented clients in patent cases involving a wide range of technologies including ...
I help businesses solve problems involving intellectual property (IP) law, business strategy, and technology law with an emphasis on intellectual property rights, patents, trademarks, copyrights, trade secrets, anti-counterfeiting, IP portfolio strategy, and commercial litigation. Intellectual Property Litigation & Business Litigation I have handled more than 500 intellectual property disputes, including over 40 patent infringement cases and hundreds of IP enforcement actions. I also have...
Lew LeClair has been a trial lawyer for more than 30 years with a focus on commercial and intellectual property litigation on both the plaintiff and defense side. He is Board Certified in Civil Trial Law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization. Lew has been recognized by a number of organizations during his career, including Chambers USA, a global organization that evaluates lawyers for business, which ranked him in commercial litigation for 2006, describing him as "exceptionally talented ...
David Lisch focuses his practice on virtually all aspects of patent litigation, along with trademark and copyright prosecution and litigation, for a variety of industries and technologies. His engineering background, coupled with his tailored IP experience, allows him to more easily evaluate and work to solve his clients’ issues. His patent litigation work involves performing pre-filing infringement analysis and drafting of claim charts through trial, including reviewing and analyzing a...
Tony Magee is an Oxford-educated, former English barrister, who has practiced law in Dallas since 1993. Before that, he practiced for nine years at the Chancery Bar in London. Tony focuses on the practice of intellectual property litigation and complex commercial litigation on both the plaintiff and defense sides. His experience includes patent infringement litigation in many technological areas, including telecommunications, including the field of inmate telephone systems, medical devices, s...
Robert Manley is a Principal in the Dallas office of McKool Smith whose practice deals with complex business and intellectual property litigation. Mr. Manley serves as an adjunct professor of trial advocacy at SMU Law School and serves on the faculties of the Southern and Gulf Coast Regional NITA programs. Mr. Manley founded and chairs the McKool Smith Pro Bono Criminal Trial Program, which provides criminal jury trial counsel to the underprivileged, and he prosecuted cases at the Dallas Dist...
Jenny L. Martinez is the Managing Partner of MWM’s Dallas office and a member of MWM’s executive committee. Jenny represents both plaintiffs and defendants in business disputes involving banking, real estate, intellectual property, employment, fiduciary liability, and corporate governance. Notably, Jenny was a key member of the legal team defending Halliburton in connection with all civil litigation and investigations arising out of BP’s Macondo well (Deepwater Horizon) blow...
William (Bill) Munck is the managing partner of Munck Wilson Mandala. He is a member of the executive committee and chairs the firm’s intellectual property group. Bill brings 30+ years of experience counseling clients regarding the development of offensive and defensive intellectual property portfolios. His technical expertise is in the hardware, software, firmware, gaming, wired/wireless communication, energy, defense, and medical device/healthcare fields. Bill is known as an attorney ...
Mark Nelson is a partner in Barnes & Thornburg's Intellectual Property and Technology practice based in Dallas and Houston. He has more than 20 years of experience litigating large, multifaceted patent infringement cases in federal district courts and before the International Trade Commission. Mark also has experience in post-grant proceedings, including both inter partes and covered business method reviews (“IPRs” and “CBMs”). Mark's experience in patent litigatio...
Mr. Newton is a partner in the Intellectual Property Litigation Group whose practice maintains a particular emphasis on complex patent infringement litigation and counseling. Many of the matters for which Mr. Newton has been responsible involve multiple parties and multiple jurisdictions, often within multiple countries. For example, he has represented clients in federal courts in California, Colorado, Delaware, Illinois, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Texas, Virginia and Wisconsin and has...
An accomplished trial lawyer, Darren Nicholson has been trying cases in state and federal courts for more than twenty years. After beginning his career at Arnold & Porter LLP in Washington D.C., one of the country’s premier law firms, he returned to Dallas in 2008 and became a partner at the nationally-recognized trial boutique Sayles Werbner PC. Darren joined Burns Charest LLP in 2019 with one goal in mind – to help build one of the premier trial firms in the country. Darren&...
Richard is the Head of the Dallas Litigation Practice Group. He is an experienced trial lawyer who has first-chaired dozens of complex cases in state and federal courts, arbitrations and other proceedings—many of which he joined as trial counsel at the 11th hour. His extensive courtroom experience includes cases involving product and environmental liability, trade secrets, breach of fiduciary duty, insurance coverage, False Claims Act allegations, partnership disputes and other business...
Paul Skiermont is a trial lawyer representing companies both large and small in complex science and technology matters, including pharmaceuticals and other life sciences, natural language processing, telecommunications, aerospace, speech recognition, consumer electronics, and related litigation. He has been ranked as one of the Top 12 IP litigation attorneys in Texas since 2015 by Intellectual Asset Management, an industry guide that identifies the top patent practitioners in key jurisdiction...
Bruce Sostek is Co-Chair of Thompson & Knight's Intellectual Property Practice. He focuses his practice on intellectual property, complex commercial litigation, technology, and business counseling, primarily in the areas of computer hardware, software, telecommunications, the Internet, sports, media, and entertainment law. He has tried cases involving patent, trademark, or copyright infringement; theft of trade secrets; unfair competition; and other intellectual property concerns in feder...
A preeminent trial attorney, Ted Stevenson’s clients turn to him for staunch advocacy when key intellectual property assets are on the line. Ted is a partner in the Intellectual Property Litigation Group. He is a trial lawyer and registered patent attorney who has been focused on IP and competition cases for over 25 years. Ted has extensive federal trial experience, having tried over 25 patent and technology cases involving diverse technologies such as cellular telephones, balloon angio...
Charles Carter advocates for clients in commercial and business litigation disputes. He strives to thoughtfully serve each client with pragmatic representation tailored to their needs and goals. His practice experience includes representing large corporations, small businesses, and municipal entities in state and federal courts on matters ranging from contractual disputes to departing employee litigation to complex commercial cases. His dedication to his clients has led to honors in Best Lawy...
Warren McCarty is a principal and skilled trial lawyer at Caldwell Cassady & Curry with significant experience litigating high-stakes cases in courtrooms across the country. Mr. McCarty advocates for a diverse array of clients, from individual plaintiffs and budding startups to large publicly traded technology companies. His experience spans patent and copyright disputes, class actions, trade secret cases, and competitor litigation. Mr. McCarty's track record demonstrates expertise in all...
Sarah E. Spires is a registered patent attorney and focuses her practice on inter partes reviews (IPRs), patent infringement litigation, and advising clients relating to intellectual property transactions and disputes, privacy, and consumer products. She has been named by Super Lawyers as a Texas Rising Star from 2016-2020, and in 2020, was also named one of the Texas Rising Stars Up-and-Coming 50 Women. Sarah has been lead or back-up counsel on over 70 IPRs spanning a wide range of technolog...
David Tobin focuses his practice on intellectual property (IP) matters, with a particular emphasis on patent post-grant trials and patent litigation. He has extensive experience litigating complex patent infringement and other IP cases across the country, including in district courts, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) and the International Trade Commission (ITC). David represents clients in a wide variety of fields spanning telecommunications hardware and standards, computer hardware a...
Our Methodology
Recognition by Best Lawyers is based entirely on peer review. Our methodology is designed to capture, as accurately as possible, the consensus opinion of leading lawyers about the professional abilities of their colleagues within the same geographical area and legal practice area.
The Process
Best Lawyers employs a sophisticated, conscientious, rational, and transparent survey process designed to elicit meaningful and substantive evaluations of the quality of legal services. Our belief has always been that the quality of a peer review survey is directly related to the quality of the voters.