Edward R. Reines

Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP

Redwood Shores

Patent litigation

Reines, co-head of Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP's nationwide patent litigation practice, scored several key victories for his clients last year.

In July, he persuaded U.S. District Judge Barbara M.G. Lynn of the Northern District of Texas to dismiss a patent infringement lawsuit complaint by Newport Beach-based patent holding company Acacia Research Corp. against HP Inc. in a clean resolution of what had been sprawling multi-district litigation.

"Acacia sued HP and a half dozen of its customers in a half dozen different courts," Reines said. "We took what was going to be messy and difficult litigation and got it in one court."

In a summary judgment motion, he argued the plaintiff's attempts to maintain limited patent claims over digital printing systems "is like a square peg in a round hole. The claimed inventions are designed to synchronize the print engines across a press, but the accused components do not do that."

Lynn dismissed the case last July. Reines is seeking attorney fees for some of the defendants. In re: Industrial Print Technologies LLC Patent Litigation, 15-MD02614 (N.D. Tx., filed April 7, 2015).

Reines also continued work for Bio-Rad Laboratories Inc., the life sciences diagnostics products maker, in its litigation against 10X Genomics Inc. In July, he persuaded U.S. District Judge Richard G. Andrews to uphold the $24 million jury verdict in late 2018 finding the defendant infringed several of his client's patents. The University of Chicago also was a plaintiff in the case.

Later in July, the judge awarded a permanent injunction barring 10X Genomics from manufacturing or selling any of the accused products. Bio-Rad Laboratories Inc. et al. v. 10X Genomics Inc., 15-CV00152 (D. Delaware, filed Feb. 12, 2015).

District court judges are usually reluctant, due to appellate court precedent, to grant injunctions but this was an exception.

"Courts are too stingy with injunctions," he said.

Reines also is representing longtime client DNA sequencing company Illumina Inc. in a patent infringement lawsuit against several defendants, including BGI Genomics Co. Ltd. and Complete Genomics Inc. Last month, he filed a motion seeking a preliminary injunction against the defendants, arguing they plan to give the allegedly infringing products away before the merits of the lawsuit are considered.

A hearing on the motion is scheduled next week before U.S. District Judge William H. Orrick in San Francisco. Illumina Inc. v. BGI Genomics Co. Ltd. et al., 19-CV03770 (N.D. Cal, filed June 27, 2019).

-- Craig Anderson