Christy G. Lea

Knobbe Martens

Irvine

Patent litigation

Lea is using her chemical engineering background to pursue cases that can have an important impact on medicine and pharmaceutical advancements in patient care.

"The technology's always different and exciting," she said. "I've been lucky to work on a lot of cutting edge technology cases, never-been-done-before medical devices, really pioneering something new and that can help patients. That's exciting."

Lea utilizes her background in science to help her connect the facts to whatever audience she's in front of. With complicated cases that are often technical and hard to discern, she said focusing on a story can help them relate and understand.

"We definitely start working on the story from day one," Lea said. "The jury is certainly going to want to know how we came about to have this device or this invention."

When representing medical device company Smith & Nephew Inc. in a number of patent challenges by knee replacement manufacturer ConforMIS, Lea crafted a story that showed ConforMIS Inc.'s patents were stated broadly and timed incorrectly.

"It's a great invention, but they were just too late," Lea said. "It had been already invented and publicly disclosed by a doctor in Germany long before ConforMIS ever filed for a patent."

Lea was able to show the knee replacement patents claimed by ConforMIS were widely used in the medical field, not just by Smith & Nephew, and this showed the content of the patents were public knowledge.

The Patent Trial and Appeal Board agreed and found ConforMIS' original and related knee replacement claims were unpatentable. Smith & Nephew Inc. v. ConforMIS Inc., IPR2016-01874, IPR2017-00115, IPR2017-0373, IPR2017-00511, IPR2017-00510, IPR2017-0544, IPR2017-00780, IPR2017-00779, IPR2017-00778 (U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board).

ConforMIS' senior patent counsel Bill Clemmons said Lea is a team player who always knows how to work well with her clients.

"She is smart, incredibly well prepared, quick on her feet, and tough," Clemmons said. "Christy understands the business need of her clients, doesn't press every issue needlessly, and always keeps the big picture in mind."

At the same time, ConforMIS filed a lawsuit against Smith & Nephew over the issue in Massachusetts, which Lea said can complicate the amount of work involved in a case. She said one big success in the outcome was convincing a judge to grant a stay on the lawsuit while the parties worked out the patent issues.

"We were able to move for a stay based upon one IPR that had been instituted, and the judge granted the stay before any real work has been done in that case," Lea said. "That was a real victory."

-- Nicole Tyau