Charles K. Verhoeven

Patent litigation

Verhoeven has succeeded at what many patent lawyers once thought impossible: He is winning cases for California corporate defendants in what has long been considered the plaintiff-friendly venue of the Eastern District of Texas. During a seven-month period, Verhoeven went 5-0. "That's pretty good for the Eastern District of Texas," he says.

Most of those wins have come from defending Google Inc., with the most recent triumph happening last month in a patent infringement case filed by Bright Response LLC, one of several holding companies controlled by Erich Spangenberg. Verhoeven also won a jury trial for Google against Function Media, which sought more than $600 million based on allegations that Google's AdSense program infringed its patent.

Verhoeven won a case for Cisco Systems Inc. in December, persuading a Texas judge the plaintiff did not own the patent.