Ashok Ramani

Ramani heads Davis Polk’s IP litigation practice. He has tried 19 cases, including three before the U.S. International Trade Commission, as lead counsel. Among the leading tech companies he represents are Comcast Corp., Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd., Netflix Inc., MediaTek Inc., Hulu, Google Inc. and Qualcomm Inc.

For his plaintiff clients, he has secured multiple nine-figure settlements and obtained a permanent injunction after winning a jury trial.

For his defendant clients, he has won a finding of no violation on multiple patents before the ITC and a walk-away settlement during a trade secret jury trial.

In March 2020 he was inducted as a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers.

“Our IP practice has expanded; our size has more than doubled,” Ramani said. “We’re up to three partners here in Menlo Park and a fourth in New York, plus 10 associates and counsel. The currency we have is our ability to bring cases—we’ve had three trials over the last 12 to 18 months.”

In March, he was retained by Seattle-based medical device manufacturer Magnolia Medical Technologies Inc. regarding a patent infringement suit against a rival over blood culture collection sets. Magnolia Medical Technologies Inc. v. Kurin Inc., 19-CV00097 (D. Del., filed Jan. 16, 2019).

“We just got hired to come in and try this case,” Ramani said.

His work for Comcast includes a new suit on behalf of its customer The Teaching Company LLC, a provider the streaming educational content The Great Courses, seeking declaratory judgment of noninfringement against Sling TV LLC. The Teaching Company LLC v. Sling TV LLC, 21-CV00740 (D. Colo., filed March 11, 2021).

Among his long-running matters, he represents Comcast in multi-jurisdiction litigation with Rovi Corp. and its affiliates, an entity - part of TiVo Corp. - that has now merged with San Jose-based Xperi Holding Corp. Ramani has served as lead counsel in numerous patent lawsuits initiated by Rovi, starting in 2016, in which the plaintiff asserted a total of 37 patents. In one case, Rovi and its subsidiaries asserted eight patents against Comcast in the Eastern District of Texas.

He secured transfer to the Southern District of New York, eliminated seven of the eight patents and obtained summary judgment of non-infringement of the final patent for all but a 10-month period. Rovi Guides Inc. v. Comcast Corp., 16-CV09278 (S.D. N.Y., filed Dec. 1, 2016).

In November 2020, Comcast and Xperi resolved all of the outstanding litigation between them, entering into a 15-year patent license agreement that runs into 2031.

Ramani said he and his colleagues are still working remotely.

“We have learned that remote work works,” he said, “but the apprenticeship aspect of lawyering is one of the best parts of the job and it is difficult to replicate remotely through Zoom.”

“Trial lawyers are social animals,” Ramani added. “I hope we can get back a hybrid office model soon.”

— John Roemer