Juanita R. Brooks

Brooks is a veteran patent trial and appellant litigator and a principal at Fish & Richardson who over a 41-year career has focused on complex intellectual property, product liability and mass tort cases. She has gained induction into the California Bar Trial Lawyer Hall of Fame and received a National Women in Law Lifetime Achievement Award.

Sometimes she has had to win a case more than once, as in her massive $235 million patent infringement verdict for client GlaxoSmithKline LLC against Teva Pharmaceuticals USA Inc.

“Actually, I had to win three times,” she said. “That was a busy appellate issue for me.” The case spanned almost 20 years as her client battled a competitor’s generic version of a drug used to treat congestive heart failure.

In the most recent outcome, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in August affirmed its prior ruling that Teva’s sales of the drug carvedilol induced infringement of a GSK method-of-treatment patent GlaxoSmithKline LLC v. Teva Pharmaceuticals USA Inc., 2018-1976, 2018-2023 (F. Cir., op. filed Aug. 5, 2021).

Last year in October, Brooks persuaded the Federal Circuit to reinstate the $235 million jury verdict after it had been overturned by a Delaware trial judge. The judge acted after a Delaware jury found that Teva was liable for inducing doctors to prescribe its infringing version of carvedilol.

“The key issue under Hatch-Waxman was whether Teva by its label language induced doctors to prescribe its version, and the answer was yes,” said Brooks, referring to the informal name for the Drug Price Competition and Patent Term Restoration Act that regulates generics.

As in last year’s Federal Circuit result, the judges in August again voted 2-1 in favor of Brooks’ client—meaning that further appeals are likely. “This is certainly not over yet,” she said. “The process will continue.”

She said she hopes that further litigation won’t have to be conducted by telephone, as her Federal Circuit argument was this year. “You could not in any way read the judges’ body language, and until that happens, you don’t realize how important that is,” Brooks said. “In that way and in the size of the award at stake, this was not your run-of-the-mill argument.”

After all her years of practice, the innovative products Brooks defends for clients keep her enthusiasm high. “I still very much enjoy what I do,” she said.

- John Roemer