Daralyn J. Durie

Durie won summary judgment late last month for client Twitter Inc. after waiting almost three years for an Eastern District of New York judge to rule on claims by Easyweb Innovations LLC that Twitter infringed its patents on alternative ways of authenticating content uploaded to different devices. Durie travels extensively and said it was nice to have good news awaiting a recent homecoming. "I landed at SFO, turned on my phone and said, 'Ha! We win,' she said.

"That was an eagerly awaited outcome," she added, in part because she'd faced formidable opposing counsel at Desmarais LLP.

It was a case emblematic of her extensive IP work for clients ranging from Solazyme Inc. to CoreLogic Inc. to Netflix Inc. For biotech giant Genentech Inc. she has an ongoing assignment to protect its core Cabilly patents on engineered antibodies from infringement and attack by the likes of Eli Lilly & Co., Bristol Myers Squib Co., Human Genome Sciences Inc. and Glaxo Group Ltd.

She went a bit afield in 2015 as lead counsel for the California State University system, defending her client in an extremely rare jury trial of a class action. The plaintiffs were 170,000 CSU students who claimed the school breached the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing by double billing them for the same classes when fees were increased amid the financial crisis in July 2009. The plaintiffs sought a fee refund totaling $54 million plus interest.

"Students unhappy with the increases told their story," she said of the three-week trial in San Francisco County Superior Court. "But we put on testimony by other students, including the [CSU] student trustee, who supported the increases."

Durie lined up other impressive witnesses who could justify the fee hikes, including attorney, diplomat and then-CSU Board of Trustees chair Jeffrey L. Bleich, now of Dentons, and gay rights icon Roberta Achtenberg, another former trustee. "She's an old San Francisco leftie, of course," Durie said of Achtenberg. "She and Jeff both said, 'We're here for the students, but there was no viable alternative [to the increases] in the financial crisis.'"

They put texture on how quickly the school had to act when its budget was slashed in May 2009 and classes were to begin three months later, Durie said. The jury voted 9-3 for a defense verdict.

John Roemer