Covington & Burling’s intellectual property practice continues to grow, and not just in the numbers of litigators. The firm scored victories last year in a broadening range of IP work. “We’ve grown horizontally so that we can say to clients, ‘If you have a patent, trademark, copyright or trade secrets issue, we’re handling those,’ ” said partner George Pappas, who joined the firm when it had seven IP lawyers. Covington now has 150 IP lawyers, Pappas said.
Last year, AOL Inc., turned to Covington to take over three lawsuits involving targeted Web advertising. Partners Eugene Gulland, Bingham Leverich and Emily Henn successfully defended the U.S. trademark rights of Stolichnaya vodka for Spirits International B.V. and partners Neil Roman and Clara Shin won a $3.6 million jury verdict in the Central District of California by proving Quiksilver Inc. had willfully infringed on World Marketing Inc.’s “VISITOR” trademark.
