Clients from Intellectual Ventures to LinkedIn want their outside counsel singing from the same hymnal.

For years, culminating with his Ninth Circuit win against UMG Recordings this week, Elkin has relied on a safe harbor provision of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to fend off copyright infringement claims against his client Veoh Networks. Elkin's pioneering work has paid off for Veoh, and so far it's paying off for Google and YouTube as they defend against Viacom's $1 billion copyright suit.

The waning days of September brought the end to a slew of big patent cases involving R.J. Reynolds, Freddie Mac, LG, and others, with Verizon alone agreeing to pay more than $500 million to put two separate infringement suits to rest.

Citing a forum selection clause in the companies' licensing agreement, Eli Lilly's lawyers at Morgan Lewis urged the Federal Circuit to nix the transfer of its patent case against Genentech to a new federal judge with strong IP chops.

Two tech-savvy federal judges are sending different messages on the standard for permanent injunctions in patent cases. While Judge Lucy Koh denied Apple's request for a ban on Samsung sales in Decemer, on Thursday Magistrate Judge Paul Grewal entered a permanent injunction sought by Brocade against rival A10 Networks.