Ashok Ramani

Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP

Menlo Park

Patent litigation

Ramani heads Davis Polk's IP litigation practice, where he represents clients including Comcast Corp., Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., Netflix Inc., MediaTek Inc., Hulu LLC and Qualcomm Inc.

"It's a small but growing IP practice," Ramani said. "Just me and two partners and a few associates. I feel like we're hitting above our weight."

Unlike many in the field, he does not have a science degree. "I see it as a good thing," he said. "I have to learn the technology involved in each case from the ground up. That's helpful in deciding how to explain matters to courts and juries."

He serves as lead counsel for telecom conglomerate Comcast, of Philadelphia, in numerous patent litigations initiated by San Jose-based Rovi Corp. and its affiliates, a patent licensing enterprise that is now part of Tivo Corp. Rovi has asserted 37 patents since 2016, when the parties clashed on terms for a renewal of Comcast's portfolio license.

Ramani has coordinated Comcast's global defense and strategy in all matters.

As part of that sprawling collection of cases, he's before the U.S. International Trade Commission in connection with six patents related to DVRs and interactive program guides. In the Matter of: Certain Digital Video Receivers, Broadband Gateways, and Related Hardware and Software Components, 337-TA-1158 (ITC, filed May 29, 2019).

"Their ask is in the high nine figures, so we're fighting this hard," Ramani said.

Much of the clash involves Comcast's move away from the primacy of the set-top cable box -- which formerly contained necessary software -- to using the box as the subscriber's conduit to the cloud. As Ramani put it in argument before ITC Administrative Law Judge MaryJoan McNamara in January, "Comcast has innovated. Rovi has litigated."

He added that the patents at issue are outdated, are "drawn from another era, are drawn from the legacy era, whereas Comcast has proceeded forward into the cloud."

A commission decision is expected later this year, Ramani said.

He's also in federal court in the Central District in a new eight-patent case filed by Rovi in January 2019. Rovi Guides Inc. v. Comcast Corp., 19-CV00275 (C.D. Cal., filed Jan. 14, 2019).

In April 2019, Rovi filed another complaint, this one attacking Comcast's use of allegedly infringing patents in its system that allows access to digitally stored programs and associated data through an interactive program guide. The unlicensed use of the patents has made the company's subscribers -- they number in the tens of millions -- direct infringers themselves, according to the complaint.

The suit seeks an injunction, though Rovi makes clear it is primarily concerned with damages and the licensing fees it's allegedly lost. Rovi Guides Inc. v. Comcast Corp., 19-CV03096 (C.D. Cal., filed April 22, 2019).

"I'm amazed I get paid to do this work, it's so interesting," Ramani said.

--John Roemer