Fish & Richardson Named to 2018 Appellate Hot List

Fish & Richardson has been named to the National Law Journal’s “2018 Appellate Hot List” for winning a wide range of precedent-setting appellate cases involving diverse legal issues and technologies. This is the seventh time that Fish has been named to this prestigious list.

Fish has won 30 cases at the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit since January 1, 2017. The firm’s highest profile wins involved client Gilead’s blockbuster drugs Sovaldi® and Harvoni®, which cure hepatitis C. In April 2018, a unanimous Federal Circuit in Gilead Sciences, Inc. v. Merck & Co. Inc. affirmed the vacatur of a $200 million jury verdict against Gilead after Fish proved Merck had forfeited its right to assert its hepatitis C drug patents against Gilead because of unclean hands. In July 2018, the Federal Circuit also summarily affirmed Gilead’s $14 million attorneys’ fees award. Fish’s all-women oral argument team won the Federal Circuit victory with the court noting Merck’s litigation misconduct “infected this entire case.”

Another Federal Circuit win was a precedential opinion that affirmed the invalidation of three BSG Tech patents under 35 USC § 101 (BSG Tech LLC v. Buyseasons, Inc.) for client Buyseasons. The patents, which had been asserted against many companies with websites that supported customer reviews, were found to be invalid because they covered nothing more than an abstract idea rather than a true real-world innovation.

Additional noteworthy appellate victories included obtaining a precedential decision affirming a finding that client Arctic Cat’s personal watercraft patent was infringed and that the infringement was willful, leading to an award of treble damages that had brought a jury verdict to a $49 million judgment (Arctic Cat Inc. v. Bombardier Recreational Products Inc.); obtaining for client Power Integrations a very rare remedy of a precedential order reversing a USPTO decision and finding the challenged claims to be valid in view of all prior art (In Re: Power Integrations, Inc.); and a precedential decision that completed Fish’s successful patent litigation for Bed Bath & Beyond, including an award of almost $1 million in attorneys’ fees (Inventor Holdings LLC v. Bed Bath & Beyond Inc.).