Fish & Richardson Named U.S. Firm of the Year in Patent Contentious, Life Sciences IP Litigation, and PTAB Categories by Managing Intellectual Property

Juanita Brooks and Dorothy Whelan named Outstanding Litigators

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Mar 19, 2018, 10:11 ET

BOSTON, March 19, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Fish & Richardson has been named the U.S. Firm of the Year in three categories: Patent Contentious, Life Sciences IP Litigation, and PTAB by Managing Intellectual Property (MIP) magazine. The firm was also named the regional Patent Contentious: West Firm of the Year. Fish principal Juanita Brooks was named Outstanding Litigator in California, and Dorothy Whelan, who co-chairs Fish's post-grant practice, was named Outstanding Litigator in Minnesota.

Fish was also on MIP's shortlist in the ITC, Patent Prosecution, Specialty IP Firm, and Patent Prosecution Northeast and West categories. Fish principals John Dragseth (Minnesota), Martina Hufnal (Delaware), Doug McCann (Delaware), Frank Scherkenbach (Massachusetts) and Dorothy Whelan (PTAB) were on shortlists as Outstanding Litigators in their respective states/categories as well.

Fish won the three prestigious U.S. Firm of the Year recognitions after scoring many high profile patent and life sciences litigation and PTAB victories in 2017. Litigation wins included: a $235 million jury verdict for GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) in a patent infringement lawsuit involving GSK's heart drug Coreg; a jury win for Microsoft against well-known patent assertion entity Parallel Networks; a $56.9 million win for SRI International against Cisco Systems that included an $8 million attorneys' fees award; and $14 million in attorneys' fees for Gilead Sciences after wiping out a $200 million infringement jury verdict in a case involving Gilead's patents on its multi-billion dollar hepatitis C drugs Sovaldi^® and Harvoni^®.

At the PTAB, Fish won three much-heralded inter partes reviews (IPRs) for Coherus BioSciences in 2017 that invalidated three patents covering competitor AbbVie's blockbuster biologic drug Humira^®. These were the first-ever IPR decisions that invalidated patents for AbbVie's biologic, which was the highest-selling drug in 2016 with $16 billion in global sales.

Founded in 1990, MIP is an international magazine for in-house IP counsel and a leading source of news and analysis on all IP developments worldwide. MIP's North America awards are the result of more than six months of analysis by its team of researchers, who conduct hundreds of interviews with IP practitioners and IP owners in North America.

Fish & Richardson is a global intellectual property firm offering patent, trademark and copyright prosecution and counseling, intellectual property litigation, and commercial litigation services. The firm has more than 400 attorneys and technology specialists in the U.S. and Europe. Our success is rooted in our creative and inclusive culture, which values the diversity of people, experiences, and perspectives. Fish is the No. 1 U.S. patent litigation firm, handling nearly three times as many cases as its nearest competitor; a powerhouse patent and trademark prosecution firm; a top-tier trademark and copyright litigation firm; and the No. 1 firm at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board, with more cases than any other firm. Since 1878, Fish attorneys have been winning cases worth billions in controversy – often by making new law – for the world's most innovative and influential technology leaders. For more information, visit https://www.fr.com or follow us at @FishRichardson.