Sarah S. Brooks

Venable LLP

Los Angeles

Patent litigation

Brooks is the current president of the Los Angeles Intellectual Property Law Association. In her legal practice, she represents clients in industries ranging from consumer products, wireless technology, wireless devices and computer science to biotech, medical devices, toys and sporting goods.

At home, where she's the mother of three, she has a lot of toy bubble machines. That's the result of her work for Target Corp. and others in defending against a patent infringement suit filed by the maker of the Gazillion Bubbles brand of products that puff air through liquid soap to form shimmering evanescent spheres. Funrise Inc. v. Target Corp. 19-CV03556 (C.D. Cal., filed April 29, 2019).

"The kids were very excited," she said. "I had to get a lot of prior art machines after the parties exchanged invalidity contentions. I now have multiples shelves of them at home."

Funrise Inc. claimed Target's Amazing Bubbles Light Up Volcano Bubble Machine -- made by Placa Co. Inc. -- infringes a patent covering a method and device for generating bubbles in Funrise's products.

Brooks persuaded U.S. District Judge George H. Wu of Los Angeles to deny Funrise's application for a restraining order against her client. Funrise then broadened its claims in separate suits against additional retailers Vons, Albertson Companies Inc. and Big Lots Inc. All retained Brooks.

The suits were consolidated; Brooks then filed a suit against Funrise on behalf of the holder of the patent behind her clients' machines, Arko Development Ltd., an affiliate of Placa.

That suit claimed patent infringement by Funrise's Gazillion Whirlwind Party Machine and the Gazillion Bubble Tornado, which allegedly blows 4,500 bubbles per minute. Arko Development Ltd. v. Funrise Inc., 19-CV04564 (C.D. Cal., filed May 24, 2019). The parties then reached a settlement Brooks described as "successful" for her retailer clients.

Brooks said she's glad she landed the case to begin with. "Let's just say that even before all this started, I was intimately acquainted with the bubble aisle at Target," she said.

For the Los Angeles Intellectual Property Law Association, Brooks is planning a spring seminar in May that will feature a keynote address by Chief Administrative Law Judge Charles E. Bullock of the U.S. International Trade Commission.

"We're seeing the trend toward patent infringement cases going outside the federal court system in the wake of the Supreme Court's TC Heartland decision," Brooks said. In that 2017 high court opinion, the justices voted 8-0 to tighten the venue rules for patent litigation and make it harder to bring cases in the patent holder-friendly Eastern District of Texas.

"Litigants are now looking to other venues like the ITC, where TC Heartland doesn't apply, which is why we want to hear from Judge Bullock," she said.

-- John Roemer