Notable Successes

Desmarais LLP won the Law360 2019 Trials Group of the Year Award for a string of courtroom victories, including defeating $400 million in patent infringement claims for Cisco Systems, securing a $57 million settlement for IBM, and achieving two inter partes review wins for IBM.
 
Law360 chose Desmarais LLP from nearly 800 submissions submitted for the annual awards, which recognize firms’ litigation wins and general excellence during the past 12 months. Desmarais LLP’s victories in 2019 included noteworthy wins led by next-generation partners.
 
“Partners at Desmarais LLP really are trial lawyers — partner is not just a title like it is at a lot of places,” said partner John Desmarais, adding, “My goal is to make sure [our partners] can develop client relationships and get opportunities they should be getting based on their talent.”
 
In January 2019, Desmarais LLP defended Cisco in a three-day bench trial against software company Egenera’s $400 million in patent infringement claims. In May 2019, the judge found in favor of Cisco, ruling that Egenera’s patent was invalid because the company had removed one of the inventors from it. The firm’s trial team included partners Tamir Packin, Jonas McDavit and Peter Magic.
 
“We impeached them repeatedly and showed that what they were saying was inconsistent with the contemporary documents,” Packin said. “The judge said explicitly in his order that these inventors were trying to rewrite history.”
 
Desmarais LLP also followed up its $82.5 million jury trial win for IBM in 2018 by securing a $57 million settlement payout from Groupon. The trial and settlement negotiations were led by partners John Desmarais and Karim Oussayef.
 
Additionally, Desmarais LLP earned two inter partes review (IPR) victories for IBM before the Federal Circuit that preserved the patent at issue in the $82.5 million trial win against Groupon. In April 2019, the Federal Circuit issued a complete reversal of one of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s (PTAB) invalidations and remanded a second reversal back to PTAB. The parties agreed to dismiss the remanded IPR, which resulted in a complete victory for Desmarais LLP and IBM. The team handling the case included partners John Desmarais, Karim Oussayef and Kevin McNish.
 
Desmarais LLP prepares these patent cases with an eye toward appeals and the full life cycle of the litigation process, Oussayef said.
 
“I think that it kind of reflects the way the firm thinks about trial work in general, which is you always have a lot of audiences whether you’re litigating a case before an administrative body or a trial court,” Oussayef said.
 
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