When Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr’s intellectual property lawyers take on a client’s cause, they tend to cast their gaze beyond the immediate case they’re litigating. As partner Mark Selwyn explains, Wilmer often sits down with clients to work out a three-to-five-year road map of “where we want to shape the law. … We bake that into the cases.” Accordingly, the firm’s IP group, which won our 2014 IP competition on the back of its success representing Apple Inc. in the smartphone patent wars against Samsung Electronics Co., has spent much of its recent past pushing its clients’ interests on appeal and in the U.S. Supreme Court.
Significant Cases: Wilmer pulled off three Supreme Court victories, including a unanimous decision in June 2014 for POM Wonderful LLC in a trademark case accusing The Coca-Cola Co. of false advertising. Another notable result came at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on behalf of Apple: Patent holder VirnetX Inc. had sued the iPhone maker in Texas, and a jury handed down a $368 million patent infringement verdict. On appeal, a Wilmer team led by former firm chairman William Lee convinced the Federal Circuit to set the verdict aside after finding flaws with VirnetX’s theory of damages.
