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DLA Piper has announced that it has hired a 30-lawyer patent team from global law firm Dentons. The team has extensive experience in patent litigation in international jurisdictions and boasts past clients, including Apple and Whirlpool. The team, which includes six patent agents, technical advisors, and 15 professional staff, will work out of DLA Piper’s San Francisco, Silicon Valley, and Seattle offices. Peter Yim, a partner in the team, said the move would enable the team to broaden its patent work beyond prosecution, and that most of the team’s clients, including pharmaceutical firm Novartis, electric car maker Tesla, and cloud computing firm VMware, will follow them to DLA Piper.
At Dentons, the team’s focus had been dominated by a single client, which Yim declined to name, and the team was keen to return to a more balanced practice, Yim said. Yim and Brian Ho represented Apple in its battle with the US Patent and Trademark Office over the company’s application for a patent on the “hold and drag” system of rearranging icons on an iPhone. The US Federal Appeals Court ordered the PTO to reconsider the application in 2017.
Sean Cunningham, DLA Piper’s global co-chair and US leader of its intellectual property and technology practice, said the firm had the deep resources to support the technical nature of the group’s work and that the team’s arrival was a signal of the firm’s commitment to expanding its IP capabilities. Last year, Cunningham and DLA Piper represented Apple in its successful bid to overturn an $85m jury award won by Canadian patent-licensing company WiLAN in a fight over wireless technology.
Dentons said that it wished the departing team well, describing the move as “mutually agreed upon” and that it would have “a positive impact on our already strong financial position.”
The move follows a busy period for significant group moves in the IP sector, with Greenberg Traurig picking up a 31-person IP team from FisherBroyles, and Morrison & Foerster absorbing 36-lawyer IP litigation firm Durie Tangri, both last autumn.
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DLA Piper’s acquisition of the 30-lawyer patent team from Dentons is a significant development in intellectual property law. With a wealth of experience in patent litigation across international jurisdictions and boasting clients including Apple, Tesla, and Novartis, the team’s arrival signals DLA Piper’s commitment to expanding its IP capabilities. The move follows a trend of the significant group moves in the IP sector and is set to boost DLA Piper’s standing as one of the world’s largest law firms. As the firm continues to broaden its services beyond prosecution, we will likely see further expansion of its IP capabilities in the coming years.
