Mr. Packin has been widely recognized by several leading publications for his trial skills and success. For example, in 2020, Law360 recognized Mr. Packin as a "Rising Star"- one of the country's top trial lawyers under the age of 40. Also in 2020, Mr. Packin was honored by The National Law Journal as a Winning Litigator – one of 2020’s Masters of the Courtroom.
More recently, in 2023, Mr. Packin was recognized by the National Law Journal as an Intellectual Property Trailblazer for his successful approach to patent trial work. He was also recognized by the New York Law Journal as a "Rising Star" - New York's most promising lawyers who are no older than 40 by the submission date.
Mr. Packin has notched trial victories for both plaintiffs and defendants. In September 2024, Mr. Packin successfully represented plaintiff IBM in a two-patent trial against Zynga related to interactive services. Mr. Packin shouldered a particularly heavy trial load, undertaking the opening statement, the closing argument, the direct examination of IBM’s lead inventor, and cross-examining Zynga’s former CTO, its VP of Engineering, and its technical expert witness. After a five-day trial, the Delaware jury returned a verdict of infringement for both of IBM’s patents (including willfulness for one of the patents), rejected Zynga’s invalidity defenses, and awarded IBM damages of $44.9 million.
In August 2022, as co-lead trial counsel, Mr. Packin successfully defended Cisco Systems in a patent infringement suit brought by Egenera related to virtual networking. The team achieved a complete defense verdict of non-infringement after a two-week jury trial in Boston putting an end to Egenera’s claim of $371 million in damages.
Previously, in January 2019, the Court held a bench trial to review Cisco’s improper inventorship defense against Egenera’s patent. As lead trial counsel for Cisco, Mr. Packin pursued an aggressive trial strategy of adversely calling two of Egenera’s key witnesses—the omitted inventor and Egenera’s CTO (also a co-inventor)—in Cisco’s case-in-chief. Mr. Packin’s cross-examinations led to the Court calling into question the “inventors’ historical revisionism” and holding that it “does not credit Schulter and the other inventors’ post-hoc protestations that Schulter did not jointly conceive the ’430 patent.” However, the Court of Appeals ultimately allowed Egenera to correct inventorship leading to the jury trial in 2022.
Mr. Packin also was a member of the trial team that successfully defeated VirnetX’s patent infringement claims against Cisco, securing a rare complete defense verdict in the Eastern District of Texas, bringing to an end VirnetX’s $258 million claim against Cisco. Earlier in his career, Mr. Packin was a member of the trial team that represented Lucent Technologies in winning a jury verdict and judgment against Microsoft of $512 million, at the time one of the top five largest patent verdicts in history.
Mr. Packin’s trial and litigation experience spans a wide range of industries and technologies, including personal computers, data center servers and switches, mobile handset technologies, computer security and software, networking equipment, wired and wireless telecommunications, voice-over-IP, cable modems, semiconductor processing, flash memory, pharmaceuticals, medical devices and ceramics.
Mr. Packin also maintains an active pro bono practice in which he volunteers to represent litigants who cannot afford counsel in the Southern District of New York. Mr. Packin’s pro bono representations cover claims ranging from constitutional prisoners’ rights to simple torts.
In addition to his litigation work, Mr. Packin also has assisted clients in negotiating settlement and license agreements, and has represented and counseled clients on strategic patent licensing, antitrust claims and inter partes review proceedings.
In 2024, Mr. Packin was named a “Super Lawyer” in Intellectual Property Litigation by New York Super Lawyers. Previously he was named a "Rising Star" in the publication for eight years. In 2020 through 2024 he was recognized as a leading patent practitioner by IAM Patent 1000. In 2023 and 2024, Mr. Packin was also recognized as a "Patent Star" by Managing IP. Mr. Packin has been with Desmarais LLP since the firm’s inception in 2010 and has been a partner since 2016. Before joining the firm, Mr. Packin was an associate in the Intellectual Property group of Kirkland & Ellis LLP.
Courts
- United States District Court for the Southern District of New York
- United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York
- United States District Court for the Northern District of California
- United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit