Overview
Relentless Protection of Your Most Valuable Assets
In today’s fast-paced, innovation-driven world, your intellectual property is the backbone of your competitive edge. From the first challenge to the final ruling, we are your dedicated partner in enforcing and defending your IP rights. Our team of seasoned trial lawyers, IP attorneys, engineers, and scientists blends technical insight with business savvy and courtroom prowess, offering you fierce and seamless advocacy in court and before the USPTO and other regulatory bodies. We thrive in high-stakes environments, tackling everything from patent and trademark infringement lawsuits to trade secret, trade dress, false advertising, unfair competition, and copyright disputes.
Best Lawyers of America
Michael Best is ranked by Best Lawyers in America for Litigation - Intellectual Property Law National Tier 2; Trademark Law National Teir 1; Advertising Law National Tier 2.
Chambers & Partners
Michael Best's IP: Trademark, Copyright & Trade Secret practice is ranked by Chambers USA: Band 3 in Illinois.
Our Approach: Guardians of Your IP Rights
As part of our firm’s largest practice group, our IP Litigation team has extraordinary experience in all aspects of acquiring, protecting, and enforcing IP rights, and we have built a strong track record of success. To us, dispute resolution is about more than winning cases—it’s about securing your future. We work tirelessly to resolve conflicts efficiently, whether through aggressive enforcement, smart settlements, or alternative dispute resolution. Our goal? To keep your focus on your business, while we handle the fight.
While our litigators thrive in the courtroom, we understand a costly, protracted dispute is not always the right answer for our clients. We employ a tailored approach that begins with discussing what you consider a successful outcome and building enforcement programs and/or a litigation plan that aligns with your goals.
Our approach includes:
Strategic Alignment
We begin by understanding your business goals and how the IP asset in question fits in, as well as your risk tolerance, your budget, and your desired outcome. This information enables us to craft an enforcement or defense strategy that aligns with your broader objectives.
Proactive Risk Management
- We help you mitigate threats through proactive clearance and enforcement measures, including competitive monitoring, early-stage guidance, audits, and employee trainings—aiming to avoid litigation whenever possible. Our team conducts clearance searches efficiently so you can make informed business decisions on whether to pursue IP protection, and whether there are risks associated with going to market.
- We can help you develop monitoring programs to identify potential issues early on, and we leverage tools such as cease-and-desist letters, Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) procedures, and joint efforts with U.S. Customs and Border Patrol, among others. Our goal is to help you conduct your business to maximize the value of your IP rights, which are necessarily diminished by avoidable disputes with others.
Litigation and Post-Grant Proceedings
When litigation is necessary, we consider your overall business objectives and manage the litigation in a manner aligned with your business strategy. We represent clients in patent, trademark, trade dress, copyright, trade secret, Internet, and advertising cases in federal and appellate courts across the country, and before agencies such as the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and its appeal boards (the PTAB and TTAB), as well as other regulatory bodies. When your interests warrant, we aggressively try cases, leveraging practical experience and technical know-how to present your position in a clear and compelling manner. We have the personnel, technology, and resources to fight even the most contentious courtroom battles to protect what’s yours.
Focus Areas
Trademark, Copyright, and Advertising Litigation
Our IP litigators zealously advocate for your brand rights, representing clients in proceedings in U.S. and foreign courts, as well as before the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board, Federal Trade Commission, international tribunals, and self-regulatory bodies, including the National Advertising Division of the Council of Better Business Bureaus.
Our attorneys have substantial experience litigating the full spectrum of claims, including:
- Trademark
- Trade dress
- Trade secret
- Product configuration and packaging
- Trade names
- Unfair competition
- False advertising
- Domain name disputes
- Internet-related trademark and copyright claims
- U.S. and foreign customs agency enforcement
- Opposition and cancellation proceedings
Patent Litigation
Our first-chair patent litigators bring substantial trial experience and technical fluency to every matter. Our backgrounds in engineering and science enable us to fully understand--and simply explain--complex computer, software, AI, electrical, chemical, life science, mechanical, and other technologies. This allows our professionals to strike to the heart of any patent dispute in a compelling, expeditious, and cost-effective manner.
We are often able to resolve patent disputes through pre-trial measures. When litigation is necessary, we vigorously fight to protect your interests. Our team has the knowledge, experience, and resources to effectively advocate for you in both district and appellate court litigation as well as any concurrent Post-Grant proceedings, providing seamless representation across venues.
Post-Grant Proceedings
Michael Best’s Post-Grant team has the experience and resources necessary to successfully navigate you through inter partes review (IPR), post-grant review (PGR), covered business method (CBM) proceedings, and ex parte reexaminations. Our team has handled these proceedings before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board since 2013, and we have achieved successful outcomes for both petitioners and patent owners.
We understand there is no one-size-fits-all approach to post-grant proceedings – each client has unique challenges and business objectives. Our dedicated team will provide you with creative post-grant strategies, litigation prowess, and advanced knowledge in a range of complex technologies. Many of our practitioners handle both the prosecution of, and challenges to, patents and patent portfolios, giving them a valuable full-circle perspective. Our attorneys leverage the experience and subject-matter expertise available through our cutting-edge Patent Engineer, Scientist, and Agent program. Through collaboration with these highly trained professionals, we provide you with high-level, cost-effective services.
Experience
District and Appellate Court Litigation
Obtained a jury verdict awarding $108 million in damages and a finding of willful patent and trade dress infringement in a case involving electronic controls.
Obtained a jury verdict awarding $18 million in damages and a finding of willful patent infringement in case involving automotive sensors.
- Obtained a reversal of a district court’s claim construction decision at the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals
- Obtained numerous affirmances of favorable district courts’ claim construction decisions
- Obtained summary judgment of patent infringement and validity
- Obtained an injunction in a multi-jurisdictional battle for a health care company
- Defeated a “bet the company” injunction in a patent case involving sporting goods
Post-Grant Proceedings
- Represented a petitioner in the injection molding industry in a series of three IPRs that resulted in some of the first Final Written Decisions addressing novel legal issues. One of the decisions, upheld on appeal, resulted in a precedential decision that assignor estoppel does not apply in post-grant proceedings. That same decision resulted in an opinion by the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals clarifying the application of incorporation by reference principles in IPRs. On remand, the PTAB reversed its original finding and held that the claims at issue were unpatentable.
- Represented a patent owner in the medical device industry defending an IPR that was filed in the wake of district court infringement litigation. The PTAB denied the petition for inter partes review at the institution phase. The client ultimately went on to obtain a judgment of infringement against the petitioner.
- Represented two petitioners in the golf industry in an IPR proceeding. The patent-at-issue was the subject of several related district court and patent office proceedings that complicated the IPR. The petition involved complicated questions of combining disparate pieces of prior art. The PTAB found all claims unpatentable.
- Represented a petitioner in the fitness industry in two IPRs involving exercise devices (e.g., treadmills) that send and receive data to and from remote locations. The results of these two IPRs were that all challenged claims were found to be unpatentable. This, along with our successful challenge of other patents by ex parte reexamination, resulted in our client avoiding a potential substantial liability for patent infringement and allowed our client to continue developing its smart technology going forward.
- Represented a world-renowned patent owner in the kitchen and bathroom fixture industry in an IPR involving shower fixtures. At the conclusion of the proceeding, all challenged claims were deemed patentable. This outcome gave our client substantial leverage in a related patent infringement lawsuit against the petitioner.
