Notable Successes

John Desmarais has been recognized as a 2018 Law360 Intellectual Property MVP for his wins over the last 12 months, which included an $82.5 million jury verdict for IBM and a quick-turnaround summary judgment for Cisco Systems.
 
Desmarais was one of six intellectual property attorneys to be named an MVP. Law360 received about 1,000 MVP submissions.
 
Desmarais’s IBM victory over Groupon was one of the largest and most important jury trial wins of the year. In July 2018, a federal jury found that Groupon had willfully infringed on all four of IBM’s patents, and it awarded IBM $82.5 million. The case was particularly significant because it confirmed the validity of IBM’s e-commerce patents, which dated back to the early days of the internet. In October 2018, Groupon agreed to settle the case with IBM, paying approximately $57 million to license the patents.
 
“That was a great achievement, and we got a wonderful result,” Desmarais told Law360.
 
Desmarais also secured a major win for Cisco after he began representing the company during the middle of a patent infringement lawsuit with Straight Path IP Group. He and his team faced intense time pressures. He had only two weeks before the deadline for fact discovery and two weeks before the deadline for opening expert reports. But the firm moved quickly to develop a rebuttal to Straight Path’s patent infringement claims, file a motion for summary judgment, and argue the motion before the court. By December 2017, just four months after taking the case, Desmarais had secured a summary judgment ruling in Cisco’s favor.
 
Desmarais also told Law360 his client relationships drive him to continue to achieve success in the courtroom. He has represented clients, such as IBM and Cisco, for more than 10 years and has built strong friendships with in-house counsel. His goal is to solve their legal problems.
 
“It becomes a motivation to help my friends in a way that transcends the job,” Desmarais said. “I don’t want to let them down; I feel I’ve got to get this thing and fix it for them.”

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