Litigation

Intellectual Property

When the stakes are at their highest, clients turn to Gibson Dunn to protect their intellectual property.

Twice secured the largest defense victory in a patent infringement suit in history

3X Winner of Law360’s IP Practice Group of the Year

235+ practice lawyers across 16 offices

Lawyers with advanced and technical degrees in areas such as electrical engineering, molecular biology, and chemistry

Overview
Experience
People
Accolades
News & Insights
Related Capabilities

Overview

Clients turn to Gibson Dunn’s Intellectual Property group for its long, consistent, and unrivaled track record of winning the most significant and challenging intellectual property cases for some of the leading companies in the world.

At every level, and under even the most trying of circumstances, Gibson Dunn has found ways to win intellectual property cases with a lot on the line, even when other firms have previously tried and failed, and often with the public and industry closely watching.

Recently, the Intellectual Property Group has achieved successful resolutions in high-profile cases for VMware, Dell, Hewlett Packard, HSBC, Fitbit, SharkNinja, Nike, T-Mobile, Verizon Media, Yahoo, AOL, NetApp, Archer Aviation, Novartis, and Merck. There is no “secret” to Gibson Dunn’s success. With every case, the firm applies a fresh perspective and opens up every assumption that may have been made by former counsel, clients, judges, and juries for challenge. With full participation by a deep and talented team, the firm then painstakingly refines the arguments and the presentations to craft a compelling story that is sophisticated and logically compelling.

In addition to winning Law360’s IP Practice Group of the Year three times over, the firm’s Intellectual Property Group, as well as many Gibson Dunn intellectual property litigators, are recognized for their work by leading legal publications, including Chambers USA, Legal 500, and U.S. News – Best Lawyers®. Chambers USA ranks Gibson Dunn in the top tier for IP: Patent in New York, and among the top practices nationwide for IP. The Legal 500 U.S. recognizes the firm as being among the preeminent patent litigation and trade secrets practices nationwide, and IAM Patent 2023 recognized Gibson Dunn as a top patent practice nationally as well as in California, New York, Texas and Washington, D.C. IAM Patent went on to name 13 Gibson Dunn partners to its list of the “world’s leading patent professionals,” while World Trademark Review named the group as one of the World’s Leading Trademark Practices and recognized two partners in the 2024 edition of the WTR 100: World’s Leading Trademark Professionals. Managing IP Handbook consistently recognizes the group and its members for their excellence in in patent, copyright, and trademark matters.

Gibson Dunn has an established track record of success identifying, securing and protecting its clients’ valuable IP assets, as well as defending clients against charges of infringement.

In short, when the stakes are at their highest, and the factual and legal challenges seem insurmountable, industry leaders turn to Gibson Dunn.

Areas of Focus

The result is an unparalleled intellectual property practice distinguished by:

Gibson Dunn is repeatedly tapped by clients to handle their cases with complex or unusual issues. For example, the firm represents pharmaceutical companies in their disputes involving billion-dollar drugs for multiple sclerosis and telecommunications companies in their thorniest litigations with significant exposure or the risk of exclusion orders, such as those that are available to complainants at the ITC.

Gibson Dunn’s IP lawyers are not only experts in the courtroom. Members of the group have advanced degrees or have practiced in the industry in a wide range of technical fields, including mechanical engineering, chemistry, biotechnology, computer software and hardware, telecommunications, and other engineering disciplines. This non-legal background helps our litigation teams work more efficiently and productively with the technical employees of our clients – since we speak their language – and to craft the most persuasive legal arguments based on the underlying technology.

Gibson Dunn’s IP group has access to, and works seamlessly with, the firm’s renowned Appellate and Constitutional Law group, allowing the firm to take a matter from its inception, all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, if necessary. Appellate litigators are an integral part of the IP practice and are often brought into the case at the onset to help develop the legal strategy. This integrated approach distinguishes the group from its competitors and is key to the recognition the firm receives.

Our lawyers have successfully litigated IP disputes across a range of products and technologies and are recognized as leaders in prosecuting, defending and trying IP claims in federal and state courts, before administrative bodies, including the U.S. International Trade Commission (USITC) and U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), as well as before domestic and international arbitration panels.

“Gibson Dunn is the total package. The team is full of skilled lawyers who are able to analyze the technical merits of the case and build case strategies around them.”
Chambers USA

Experience

Recent representations include:

VMware and Dell: Defended VMware and Dell against plaintiff WSOU’s $435 million claim of infringement of three patents related to cloud computing. On the third day of a jury trial, we won the first ever directed verdict of non-infringement before Judge Albright in the Western District of Texas, leading to a complete defense victory.
Kimberly-Clark: Won dismissal for Kimberly-Clark of a trademark infringement case filed by plaintiff Yaros, alleging that Kimberly-Clark used plaintiff’s registered phrase in online advertising and seeking millions of dollars in damages.
EMC/Dell: After a battle spanning more than seven years across three different tribunals, Gibson Dunn secured a complete defense victory on behalf of EMC (now part of Dell) in patent litigation brought by ACQIS which had originally sought nearly a billion dollars in damages after ACQIS repeatedly and successfully litigated the eleven patents at issue against others.
TikTok and ByteDance: Achieved a complete defense verdict in the Central District of California for TikTok and ByteDance in a $350 million trademark case over TikTok’s “stitch” tool.
Fitbit: Won a complete defense victory at trial for Fitbit in high-stakes patent litigation brough by Philips at the ITC, defeating all the asserted patents and defeating Philips’s request for an exclusion order that would have banned substantially all of Fitbit’s smartwatch and tracker products from importation into the United States.
CytoSport: Achieved a significant victory for CytoSport in a dispute over its “Muscle Milk” trademark and product, securing a preliminary injunction against competitor VPX’s “Muscle Power” trademark. We successfully challenged VPX’s evidence of consumer confusion, leading to the exclusion of an expert’s survey and then won summary judgment dismissing VPX’s false advertising claim.
Amrock: Persuaded the Texas Court of Appeals for the Fourth Judicial District in San Antonio to overturn in its entirety a $706 million trade secrets jury verdict against Amrock – one of the largest ever in the state of Texas.
Jerry Seinfeld: Secured dismissal, with prejudice, for comedian Jerry Seinfeld of a copyright lawsuit targeting his hit Netflix show, Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee. Affirmed on appeal. Law360 named the case among its “Top 10 Copyright Rulings of 2019.”
Nestlé Healthcare Nutrition: Won dismissal with prejudice of false advertising claims regarding its Boost Glucose Control nutritional drinks.
Hewlett-Packard: Obtained a $3 billion trial verdict for Hewlett-Packard, the highest verdict in California for the year, in a long running dispute over copyright licensing agreements related to software. Hewlett-Packard Co. v. Oracle Corp.