Rachael E. Meny

Meny advises technology companies on issues surrounding conflicts when employees are hired from, or are departing to, competitors.

Her last pre-pandemic in-person courtroom experience was in March 2020, when she returned to Boston for closing arguments in 10X Genomics’ patent claims against a rival company owned by a Harvard College professor.

“We managed to squeeze that trial in just in time, before Covid fully hit,” Meny said.

The judge ruled in Meny’s client’s favor in July in the declaratory judgment case, finding that 10X is the exclusive licensee to the biotech patent rights at issue covering droplet-based microfluidics used in single-cell sequencing technology. 10X Genomics Inc. v. 1CellBio Inc. et al., 2018-03355-BLS1 (Suffolk Co. Super. Ct., filed Oct. 18, 2018).

10X alleged that Harvard and 1CellBio violated the conditions of a license agreement by issuing a co-exclusive license to the defendant and Professor David Weitz.

An appeal has been docketed, but 1CellBio has filed for bankruptcy protection, stalling further litigation, Meny said.

Meny and law partner Robert Van Nest serve as co-lead counsel for Google in arbitration claims against former Google employees Anthony Levandowski and Lior Ron, alleging they breached their contracts and legal duties to Google by taking their autonomous vehicle know-how to Uber Technologies Inc. The arbitrator’s $179 million final award was confirmed in San Francisco County Superior Court in March 2020. The award remains tied up in Levandowski’s bankruptcy proceedings.

Meny noted that former President Donald Trump’s pardon of Levandowski’s trade secret conviction does not affect the civil judgment she is pursuing. “We continue to litigate whether Uber,” which bought Levandowski’s self-driving truck startup Otto for a reported $680 million, “has to indemnify Mr. Levandowski for the judgment,” Meny said.

— John Roemer