Charles K. Verhoeven

Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP

San Francisco

Patent, trade secrets litigation

Verhoeven said trade secrets misappropriation lawsuits fall into two categories, though the complaints often overlap. The first involves employees leaving a company to move to a competitor or launch a startup, the types of cases he said have been going on "forever."

"The new resurgence in trade secrets cases is because of the exponential march of technology," he said. "By the time you get a patent, you can sue for past damages."

But that is not what's truly valuable. "Whoever gets the technology right first has a good chance of getting the market," Verhoeven said.

He has been on both sides of such lawsuits. In 2018, he was the lead attorney for Alphabet Inc.-owned Waymo LLC, which sued Uber Technologies Inc. over allegations the ride-hailing company stole its self-driving car technology.

That civil case settled in the middle of trial, with Uber agreeing to give Waymo a $245 million stake in its company. Waymo LLC v. Uber Technologies Inc., 17-CV00939 (N.D. Cal., filed Feb. 23, 2017).

After Verhoeven's civil case concluded, federal prosecutors charged former Waymo engineer Anthony S. Levandowski with criminal trade secrets charges last year, and a San Francisco County Superior Court judge affirmed a $179 million judgment against him by an arbitration panel earlier this month.

Verhoeven was on the other side of a trade secrets misappropriation battle earlier this year. He represented a company in a lawsuit accusing Twist Bioscience Corp. and its employees, including CEO Emily Leproust, of stealing technology from Agilent Technologies Inc., her former employer.

"She left and came up with a new idea of making genes using silicon wafers," Verhoeven said.

Daniel M. Petrocelli, a partner with O'Melveny & Myers LLP, argued Leproust's ideas were developed while she worked at Agilent. The suit also challenged Twist's patents on its technology to synthesize oligonucleotides, nucleic acid polymers used in research, genetic testing and forensics.

Verhoeven said the lawsuit was "predatory," intended to undermine the new company's ability to raise funds.

The case settled in February. Twist agreed to pay $22.5 million to settle the lawsuit without admitting wrongdoing. The resolution prompted a spike in the company's stock price. Agilent Technologies Inc. v. Twist Bioscience Corp. et al., 16CV291137 (Santa Clara County Sup. Ct., filed Feb. 3, 2016).

Last year, Verhoeven won a victory for Alphabet in a lawsuit filed by a company owned by Fortress Investment Group, a patent holding company. The case settled a day before trial in January 2019 for what Verhoeven said was a sum "well below nuisance value." Seven Networks LLC v. Google LLC, 17-00442 (E.D. Tx., filed May 17, 2017).

-- Craig Anderson