Top Defense Results: Dyna LLC v. GreatCall Inc.

Trade secrets misappropriation

American Arbitration Association

Retired Orange County Superior Court Judge William F. McDonald

Defense attorneys: Jones Day, Randall E. Kay, Jane L. Froyd, Philip Sheng, Tharan Greg Lanier, Jason McDonnell, David W. Schecter, Kamilah Alexander, Jordan Arakawa

Plaintiff's attorneys: Wilson Elser Moskowitz Edelman & Dicker LLP, Michael J. McCloskey; Caldarelli Hejmanowski Page & Leer LLP, Lee E. Hejmanowski, Ben West, David H. Lichtenstein

It was a bet-the-company case for GreatCall Inc., a mobile device maker for aging adults, after founders Marty Cooper and Arlene Harris sued their brainchild over intellectual property disputes.

The problem for GreatCall's lawyers at Jones Day, led by partner Randall E. Kay, was that their adversaries were telecommunications pioneers.

Cooper and Harris' company, Dyna LLC, sought more than $725 million plus ongoing royalties and fees on its trade secret misappropriation and other claims.

Following referral by a San Diego County Superior Court judge to binding arbitration, GreatCall won a directed verdict on its counterclaims from an American Arbitration Association and JAMS neutral. Dyna LLC v. GreatCall Inc., 01-14-0001-8133 (American Arbitration Association).

Kay, GreatCall's lead defense lawyer and a trade secrets authority, gambled by calling his client's general counsel as a trial witness, a rare move in IP litigation.

"We humanized GreatCall by having its executives share GreatCall's path from startup to maturity through their sweat of the brow and hard work," Kay said. "We demonstrated that GreatCall's own innovations are responsible for its commercial success."

Added Kay: "We defeated the other side's experts through rigorous cross-examination that demonstrated lack of foundation for their purported opinions. We took the analogies that the other side's technical expert used and spun those arguments against Dyna."

- John Roemer