Juanita R. Brooks

Harvoni and Sovaldi, manufactured by Gilead Sciences Inc. as a cure for Hepatitis C, have sparked heated legal battles with other big pharma competitors trying to share the $19 billion in global sales the two drugs made alone last year.

Gilead has called on Brooks in its case against Merck & Co. over two patents of a key ingredient in the drugs.

Last month, a jury awarded Merck $200 million of the $2 billion it sought. Gilead Sciences v. Merck & Co, et al., 13-04057 (N.D. Cal., March 24, 2016)

A week later in a post-verdict bench trial, Brooks and her team accused a Merck lawyer of taking confidential information about the yet-to-be-developed drugs to Merck from a company later acquired by Gilead.

While that case continues, Brooks is also representing Gilead in Delaware against AbbVie Inc. and Abbott Laboratories in an attempt to invalidate their hepatitis C drug patents. Gilead Sciences, et al. v. Abbott Laboratories, et al., 13-2034 (D. Del., filed Dec. 18, 2013)

Trial is scheduled to begin this fall.

"I'm certainly working on really large cases with big consequences," she said. "In the Gilead case, we're dealing with a drug that's a cure - which is pretty amazing - and a lot of companies are claiming they want a piece of that. They're very challenging cases and very interesting cases."

Though pharmaceutical and medical device cases have come across Brooks' desk more often, she's also involved in information technology cases.

Adding to her list of high-profile clients, Brooks is representing Santa Clara-based Arista Networks Inc. in a patent infringement case against San Jose-based Cisco Systems Inc. A recent International Trade Commission ruling in favor of Cisco has stayed the U.S. case. Cisco Systems Inc. v. Arista Networks Inc., 14-05344 (N.D. Cal., filed Dec. 5, 2014).

Brooks is also representing Microsoft Corp. in a Delaware patent infringement case where Parallel Networks Licensing LLC accuses the computer giant of disclosing ways to create and manage custom websites. Last July, she successfully defended Microsoft after it was accused by IpLearn-Focus LLC of infringing on three patents in its Xbox products.

- Kibkabe Araya