Daralyn Durie

Durie enjoys doing very different things at the same time.

In college, she double-majored in human biology and comparative literature. Then, she studied for a literature Ph.D. and a law degree simultaneously. She abandoned her dissertation when she found a job as a lawyer.

Now, as a co-founder of her boutique IP firm, Durie handles exacting patent cases for innovator companies in the life sciences and also represents those companies, the California State University system and other clients in complex civil litigation.

“What I like is doing IP cases and not IP cases,” she said.

Her talent for intellectual multitasking could prove necessary soon. Durie has a patent case and a copyright case set for trial in June and two more patent trials scheduled for July.

In the first one up, she represents a leader in cell-by-cell genetic sequencing suing a competitor for patent infringement. 10x Genomics Inc. v. Celsee Inc., 1:19-cv-00862 (D. Del., filed May 8, 2019).

The defendant company was acquired a year ago by industry giant Bio-Rad Laboratories Inc. In another case, Durie is defending a company that Bio-Rad is suing. Genetic sequencing “is a super litigious space,” she said. “You can wind up on either the plaintiff’s or the defendant’s side of the v.”

Next comes a copyright dispute about whether a video game character looks too much like a drawing of a comic book version of a real professional wrestler. She is defending game giant Activision Publishing Inc. against WWE star Booker T. Huffman, who, Durie said, “is asking for a slightly undetermined but outrageous amount of money.” Huffman v. Activision Publishing Inc., 2:19-cv-00050 (E.D. Tex, filed Feb. 12, 2019)

Two more technical cases are set for trial next. She is defending the City of Hope against a former graduate student over who invented technology used in genetically engineering immune cells to treat cancers. Mardiros v. City of Hope, 2:19-cv-02196 (C.D. Cal, filed March 22, 2019).

Then a comes trial representing a Berkeley drug developer seeking to enforce its patents on a drug that specifically targets metastatic melanoma. Plexxikon Inc. v. Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corp., 17-cv-04405 (N.D. Cal., filed Aug. 3, 2017).

Surprisingly, Durie says her literature studies help her legal work. As a graduate student, she focused on post-structuralist criticism, which, like patent law, demands very close analyses of texts.

— Don DeBenedictis