Daralyn J. Durie

In the decade since Durie founded her Silicon Valley legal boutique, her litigation docket has been full, representing industry powerhouses such as Google Inc., Netflix Inc. and Twitter Inc.

One of her longest-standing clients has been biotechnology company Genentech Inc., for which she defended the crucial Cabilly patents, which protect the process of recombinantly synthesizing antibodies, starting in 2003. The patents expired last year.

Durie argued and won two inter partes review proceedings on behalf of Genentech late last year over blockbluster cancer treatment drug Herceptin. Pfizer Inc., Celltrion Inc. and Samsung Bioepis Co., brought the claims against Genentech on the basis of similar prior art. The challenge, Durie said, was convincing the Patent Trial and Appeal Board to grapple with very fine, technical distinctions.

“It was also getting the board to appreciate the real significance of the breakthrough invention that this was,” Durie added. “This was not just a reliance on ancillary patents to try to protect exclusivity in a way that I think decision-makers are sometimes skeptical of.”

As a result, the board issued nuanced and technical decisions in favor of Genentech. Pfizer, Inc. v. Genentech, Inc., IPR2017-01488 (PTAB, filed May 25, 2017).

In the pro bono realm, Durie is working with the American Civil Liberties Union in suing San Francisco over the police department’s allegedly racially discriminatory enforcement. Of 37 people federally prosecuted for selling drugs in the Tenderloin neighborhood in 2013 and 2014, all were black, according to the October complaint. Cross v. City and County of San Francisco, 18-cv-06097 (N.D. Cal., filed Oct. 3, 2018).

“The numbers speak for themselves,” Durie said. “It’s hard for me to see how you could stand with a straight face and say this is not racial profiling.”

Durie participated in a case management conference in February.

“This is one place where lawyers and law can have a powerful force for social change,” Durie said. “I think we have an obligation to do that and to think about ways we can make change in a productive way.”

— Erin Lee