Saina S. Shamilov

When she was 17, Shamilov’s parents sent her to Mountain View, where an uncle lived, from the family home in the Republic of Azerbaijan. “My uncle’s house was just three blocks from the Fenwick offices,” she said. “Amazing but true.”

She’s now a patent litigation partner at Fenwick.

When a plaintiff sought more than $100 million in damages on claims that Amazon.com’s Alexis voice command devices infringed its patents, Shamilov, representing Amazon, found a way to help the jury envisage the complex AI technology at issue. “I put a visual together that had Alexa as a beautiful futuristic female robot,” she said. “Together with our main witness, I think that turned the case in our favor.” Innovation Sciences LLC v. Amazon.com Inc., 4:18-cv-00474 (E.D. Tex., filed July 5, 2018).

The jury found non-infringement and concluded that the patents were invalid and ineligible. With the jury’s finding that the asserted claims were directed to conventional, well-known and routine technology, the outcome was believed to be among the first defense jury verdicts on a Section 101 issue.

Shamilov, as co-lead counsel, found that her main defense witness, a key engineer on the Alexis team, was effective on the stand. “We’d prepped him to be a storyteller,” she said. “He framed his work into a story that made sense. The jurors understood what he was saying, and I’ve always found that jurors believe what they understand.”

Her team won another case featuring the same parties in the Eastern District of Virginia.

She also prevailed for 80 Amazon Web Services customers after Amazon retained her to defend them in lawsuits by a plaintiff alleging infringement. Shamilov successfully argued for declaratory judgment, contending that because the same claims had been litigated and then dropped against Amazon, they could not again be asserted against individual customers. Amazon.com Inc. v. Personal Web Technologies, 5:18-cv-00767 (N.D. Cal., filed Feb. 5, 2018).

“Amazon was there to protect its customers,” Shamilov said.

— John Roemer