Geoff Howard

San Francisco

Practice: litigation

Specialty: intellectual property

Serving as team leader and co-lead counsel on a case heralded as one of the nation's largest intellectual property cases ever litigated consumed most of Howard's time for the past 18 months.

On Nov. 23, 2010, he and his team won a landmark victory for the Oracle Corp., resulting in a jury award of $1.3 billion in damages for software piracy. Oracle Corp. v. SAP AG, 3:07-CV-01658, (N.D. Cal.).

Oracle filed its lawsuit in 2007, alleging that SAP had stolen thousands of copies of the company's software and resold them and related services to Oracle's own customers.

"It was an incredible experience," Howard said. "We had the best and most talented team I've ever been a part of."

But Oracle received a setback on Sept. 1, when a federal judge tossed out the award, ruling Oracle could accept a $272 million award, labeling it "the maximum amount of lost profits and infringer's profits sustainable by the proof."

In a prepared statement, Oracle wrote, "There was voluminous evidence regarding the massive scope of the theft, clear involvement of SAP management in the misconduct and the tremendous value of the IP stolen. We believe the jury got it right and we intend to pursue the full measure of damages that we believe are owed to Oracle."

Trying a case of this magnitude, along with conveying to a jury all of the highly complex technical evidence, he said, "was an enormous challenge."

"If you allow yourself to get too far into the weeds, you can lose a jury," Howard said. "But at the heart this was a simple story - 'This is our stuff, it is extremely valuable, we paid for it, and you took it.'"

Howard also credits what he called "a very attentive jury," adding, "We live in an era when people have a certain amount of technical background and skills. It's not as if the concepts are completely foreign to them."

- PAT BRODERICK