Lisa S. Glasser

This past fall, Glasser and her frequent trial co-lead, Jason Sheasby, scored three major trial victories. They won $300 million from Apple Inc. in August over 4G LTE patents. Next came a $48 million win for the City of Pomona in September, followed quickly by a $60 million settlement days before trial in a battle over patents related to a tiny medical device.

"Even in the pandemic, we kept our trial calendar going pretty well," Glasser said.

This year, she has another four trials planned, with the first set to begin this week in Texas. [April 18] All four pit her client, United States Automobile Association, against PNC Bank or a related company, in a back-and-forth fight over patents used to deposit checks remotely by cell phone.

The issues in those cases parallel those in the two trials in 2019 and 2020, in which she and Sheasby won $102 million and $200 million for the military insurer against Wells Fargo.

Glasser says one secret to her success is not having a technical background. Her undergraduate degree was in the dismal science of economics. She is not, she said, just an intellectual property lawyer. "Part of the strength we bring to bear on a jury trial is... translating technology to laypeople."

A good example is the trial for Pomona, which dealt with water contamination from fertilizer used in the 1930s and '40s. It wasn't a patent case, but her team was hired for that same skill at translating technical concepts for a jury, she said. City of Pomona v. SQM North America Corp., 2:11-cv- 00167 (C.D. Cal, filed Jan. 6, 2011).

That trial began just three weeks after Sheasby wrapped up the trial over 4G LTE technology on behalf of client Optis Wireless Technology LLC.

She led the next case, which concerned patents for the smallest medical device ever approved by the FDA, a stent used to treat glaucoma. Early in the case, she won a summary judgment declaring that none of her client's patents infringed those of a competitor. She then won several more motions including that several of her client's patent claims were valid, a concession of infringement, the right to lost profits as damages and another allowing an instruction on destruction of evidence by the competitor. "The cumulative motion practice in that case was a significant piece of [the success]," she said. Glaukos Corporation v. Ivantis, Inc., 18-cv-00620 (C.D. Cal., filed April 14, 2018).

Glasser also defends patents. Early this year, she settled a patent infringement case against DePuy Synthes, a Johnson & Johnson unit that makes devices used in orthopedic surgeries. Osteoplastics LLC v. DePuy Synthes Inc., 2:20-cv-00406 (D. Del., filed March 20, 2020). She also is defending the company in two similar matters.

- Don DeBenedictis