J. David Hadden

To speed results and save litigation costs, Hadden has developed a knack for achieving wins via summary judgment for his numerous technology company clients.

His record of resolving complex IP cases early is due in part to his pre-law training in theoretical physics.

He completed graduate work in string theory at Princeton University as a National Science Foundation graduate fellow and attending Yale University, where he earned a physics degree and graduated from law school.

“If you can figure out problems in 26 dimensions, it makes most things seem doable,” he said. “That background taught me how to work hard.”

“I tell people that if you understand orthogonal linear algebra, you can grasp video compression and signal modulation algorithms,” Hadden added. “You can see patterns.”

The IP research company Patexia Inc., which evaluates IP lawyers, recently ranked Hadden first as best performing defense attorney over a three-year period ending in June 2020.

Sometimes defense requires a proactive offense. He went on the attack for client Amazon.com Inc. against a company that alleged patent infringement by more than 80 customers of Amazon Web Services, a cloud computing platform provider.

Hadden’s approach was to sue for declaratory judgment, contending that because Amazon had already defeated claims on those patents, they could not be again asserted against individual customers.

U.S. District Judge Beth Labson Freeman of San Jose added a representative customer case to the litigation. In re: PersonalWeb Technologies LLC et al. Patent Litigation 18-MD02834 (N.D. Cal., filed Feb. 5, 2018).

Hadden won on his preclusion argument; in June 2020 the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed the win, ruling in a precedential opinion that the prior dismissal did bar PersonalWeb’s infringement actions.

That victory was followed by a favorable claim construction order and a grant of summary judgment of non-infringement on all claims.

Finally, in March, Freeman - having ruled the case met the “exceptional” standard - held that Hadden’s client was entitled to $4.8 million in fees and costs.

She dinged PersonalWeb for discovery misconduct which “continually gave Amazon the run around” and held that PersonalWeb’s request for a 75 percent fee reduction “borders on ridiculous.”

“The case was important because every company of any size in tech uses Amazon Web Services,” Hadden said. “PersonalWeb by suing 80 of those companies hoped to extract settlements from them.

“It was hard for them all to defend themselves, so Amazon hired us to go to bat for their customers,” he added. “It was an efficient way to get the right result.”

Hadden said he dodged avoided the COVID-19 virus at a trial he won for Amazon in the Eastern District of Texas last year. Innovations Sciences LLC. V. Amazon.com Inc., 18-CV00474 (E.D. Tex., filed July 5, 2018).

“It was tricky doing a Covid trial,” he said. “We rented several floors of a hotel and had a private elevator, and there was a lot of plexiglass and masking in the courtroom.”

“On the plus side, it was good to see a lot of people in person for the first time in a long time, and we all came away healthy,” Hadden added. “On the scary side, later at a different trial before the same judge, a lot of people got sick.”

— John Roemer