Charles K. Verhoeven

Verhoeven is head of Quinn Emanuel’s Northern California offices in San Francisco and Redwood Shores and is co-chair of the firm’s national intellectual property litigation practice. Clients include Alphabet Inc.’s Google Inc. and Waymo LLC, Time Warner Cable Inc. and Samsung Group.

He is lead counsel for Waymo in its marquee suit against Uber Technologies Inc. and former employee Anthony Levandowski over alleged misappropriation of driverless car trade secrets. Verhoeven obtained a preliminary injunction barring Levandowski from working in this area as well as stringent inspection and accounting requirements for Uber. Waymo LLC v. Uber Technologies Inc., 3:17-cv-009939 (N.D. Cal., filed Feb. 23, 2017).

Based on the evidence and briefing submitted by Verhoeven’s team, U.S. District Judge William Alsup of San Francisco referred questions regarding the defendants’ conduct to the U.S. attorney’s office. “We got an expedited trial date from Judge Alsup,” Verhoeven said of the upcoming Oct. 10 courtroom showdown. “This is about highly valuable technology in the nascent self-driving car industry. Google is technologically the leader. If Uber is allowed to copy what Waymo developed, the harm will be significant. We’re still taking discovery, so it’s too early to talk about damages. I expect the trial will take about two weeks. It is certainly the case I am most preoccupied with at the moment.”

In an unusual move for Google in a different case, Verhoeven successfully won transfer to California of a patent infringement suit filed in Texas. Eolas Technologies Inc. sued Google and others over broad networking patents, seeking hundreds of millions of dollars in damages. Verhoeven and other counsel for the defendants moved for transfer of the case from the Eastern District of Texas. After waiting six months, and with a key hearing approaching, Verhoeven petitioned the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit to order the district court to transfer the case. On Feb. 23, the circuit granted the petition and shipped the case to the Northern District. Eolas Technologies Inc. v. Google Inc., 3:17-cv-01138 (N.D. Cal., filed March 6, 2017).

Wrote Chief Circuit Judge Sharon Prost, “it was a clear abuse of discretion for the district court [in Texas] to conclude that the Northern District of California is not clearly the more convenient forum.” She noted that many Google employees work in California and Eolas has only one employee in Texas’ Eastern District.

“Most patent cases are filed in this tiny town of Marshall, Texas,” Verhoeven said. “Some call it forum abuse.”

— John Roemer