Edward R. Reines

For years, a company founded by a former UCSF biologist struck fear into major Silicon Valley companies, accusing them of infringing patents that enable Internet browsers to host embedded interactive applications, such as streaming video and other features.

Eolas Technologies Inc., with backing from the University of California because inventor Dr. Michael Doyle was a UC employee at the time he came up with the patented technology, was setting its sights on much of Silicon Valley.

Most of the original group of nearly two dozen defendants, aware that Microsoft Corp. had settled the case after getting a $521 million damages verdict overturned, decided to settle too.

But Reines teamed up with former partner Douglas E. Lumish of Kasowitz Benson Torres & Friedman LLP and Texas attorney Jennifer Doan as co-lead counsel for Amazon.com Inc. and Yahoo Inc. They called witnesses, including some of the founders of the World Wide Web, to persuade a Tyler, Tex.-based jury to invalidate the patents in a jury verdict in February.

"I was the strategist for the defense group," Reines said. Eolas Technologies Inc. v. Adobe Systems Inc. et al, 11-646, (E.D. Tx., filed Oct. 6, 2009).

It was one major triumph in a very good year for Reines, who also successfully defended City of Industry-based Newegg Inc. in October against infringement claims by an Alcatel-Lucent SA subsidiary, persuading an Eastern District of Texas jury that the company did not infringe the patents.

As in the Eolas case, most other defendants settled before the trial. Alcatel-Lucent USA Inc. v. Amazon.com Inc., 09-422 (E.D. Tx., filed September 25, 2009).

"This year has featured a lot of cases where I have won when the client has hung in there when others settled," he said.

Reines said he will be handling the appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in the Alcatel-Lucent case.

In January, the Federal Circuit upheld Sunnyvale-based NetApp Inc.'s summary judgment defense win against an Acacia Research Corp. subsidiary in an appeal he argued.

- Craig Anderson

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