James L. Davis Jr.

Ropes & Gray LLP

East Palo Alto, San Francisco

Patent litigation

Davis wasn't around for the dot-com boom of the 1990s, but things have changed a lot since he started working in IP back in 2005.

"We would only use WordPerfect," he joked. "And now, I'm not sure anybody uses that anymore."

Since then, he's represented clients across a broad range of industries from semiconductors, wireless technology, consumer electronics and medical devices.

One of his recent major victories was fending off a patent holding company that sued Emerson Electric Co.

All told, Davis invalidated for 75 claims related to wireless networking. Emerson Electric Co. et al. v. Sipco LLC et al., 15-CV00319 (N.D. Ga., filed Jan. 30, 2015).

With volume like that, he said victory couldn't be achieved without a cadre of associates, including technical advisers and people with Ph.Ds.

"As you scale up, I think you're introducing more chances for inconsistencies or something to go sideways," Davis explained. "So it's a matter of that attention to detail and having a great team working with you. That really helps kind of keep things on the rails and headed in the right direction."

But even with a convincing win like that, he said the type of case is a trend he expects to increase.

"Patents are already hypercomplex, but now with more plaintiffs asserting not just two or three patents, but 10 or more patents in a case, I think we're going to continue to see that trend."

Davis also fended off a trio of patents asserted by a plaintiff in the video game industry.

In late 2018, he scored a victory for Activision Blizzard, one of the most well-known titans in the gaming industry. The focal point of the case was World of Warcraft, an online multiplayer roleplaying game.

The plaintiff asserted three patents concerning broadcasting information in computer networks.

The Patent Trial and Appeal Board found 37 claims across the three patents unpatentable and the matter was appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, which affirmed the PTAB's decisions in November 2018. Acceleration Bay LLC v. Activision Blizzard Inc. et al., 2017-2084 (Fed. Cir., filed Nov. 6, 2018).

But regardless of how fun the video game industry can be perceived to be, Davis draws satisfaction from learning.

"The nature of the work is that we're constantly keeping abreast with whatever the latest technology is, whether it's cloud computing or certain security threats to networks, biologics or medical devices," He said. "All of those areas are constantly evolving."

-- Arin Mikailian