I. Neel Chatterjee

Chatterjee is a partner in Goodwin’s IP practice and serves on the firm’s executive committee. His clients include Facebook Inc., the company founded by Mark Zuckerberg, with whom Chatterjee’s long history has been chronicled both in a movie, “The Social Network,” and in a book, “Bitcoin Billionaires.”

His current work for Facebook involves patent infringement claims in which a plaintiff accused the company’s “Facebook 360,” “3D Photos” and “Workplace by Facebook” of infringing four patents.

A federal judge dismissed on patent ineligibility grounds both the original and an amended complaint. Gabara v. Facebook Inc., 19-CV09890 (S.D. N.Y., filed Oct. 25, 2019).

The outcome is currently before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. Chatterjee declined to discuss it while the appeal is pending.

Chatterjee also represents a higher education school in West Bengal, India, in litigation with a Dominica-chartered company operating in California over the company’s claims that the school breached an oral joint venture agreement and misappropriated trade secrets.

The technology in question allows applications to function on handheld devices without an internet connection. M.A. Mobile Ltd. v. Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, 08-CV02658 (N.D. Cal., filed May 27, 2008). Chatterjee obtained a defense victory for his client that was affirmed by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

“The plaintiff, Mandana Farhang, was asking for hundreds of millions of dollars. We won $40,000 in costs, and we’re going for it, after all the hassle she put us through—and now her refusal to satisfy this little judgment,” he said.

Chatterjee has obtained a contempt citation. “She claims she’s in Africa now, and she has declared bankruptcy,” he said.

He described his ongoing work for client Anthony Levandowski, the former Google Inc. and Uber Technologies Inc. self-driving car engineer, as “the case that just won’t go away.”

Chatterjee represents Levandowski in a pending indemnity quarrel with Uber on claims the ride service failed in its obligation to pay the engineer upwards of $179 million, which Levandowski owes to Google’s parent Alphabet Inc. as part of an arbitrated contract dispute.

“Uber was honoring the indemnity until it became clear the case was not going well for it,” Chatterjee said.

The debt remains in place despite President Donald Trump’s pardon of Levandowski on a trade secrets criminal guilty plea.

Chatterjee noted that Levandowski has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, enabling him to negotiate debts; the indemnity dispute is set for trial in bankruptcy court for late April. In re Levandowski, 20-BK30242 (N.D. Bankr. Ct., filed March 4, 2020).

Chatterjee is still working from home. “The only reason to go into the office now is to shred documents,” he said.

Remote hearings have changed the way he works, he added.

“If there are trade secrets involved, you don’t know who’s on the phone,” he said. “You used to be able to look around the courtroom to see who was there. You need to be nimble.”

— John Roemer