Matthew Powers

The intellectual property litigator scored big victories over the past year for some of the high-technology giants, as he fought off patent infringement cases for Microsoft Corp., Apple Inc. and Cisco Systems Inc. He persuaded a jury to dismiss a $750 million suit brought against Microsoft and its Windows XP operating system in the plaintiff-friendly Eastern District Court in Texas. The co-head of Weil Gotshal's litigation department, who teaches patent litigation at the UC Berkeley School of Law, also managed to whittle down patent litigation payouts by Apple and Cisco. In Cisco's case, it went from a potential $1 billion to $6.5 million.