Neel Chatterjee

Chatterjee is an internationally known technology litigator who has represented Facebook, Oracle, eBay, Apple and LinkedIn and whose cases sometimes break new ground in undefined areas of the law.

Currently, he is thinking about what he calls “the advent of data as an effect and user rights associated with access to that data.”

With advances in technology making more data available, users want access to and control over their own data, while businesses like web services, “need to manage how that data can or cannot be used,” he said.

Such disputes are growing rapidly. “For the past 25 years, at any given time, I may have handled one or two cases that involve this kind of set of issues,” Chatterjee said. “Today, I’m handling eight.”

One of those is a case between Volkswagen and client Smartcar Inc., which has created technology that allows drivers to connect their cars to various apps to get better insurance rates or share information with a repair shop. The question, he said, is whether drivers have the right to access the data their cars create.

Automakers like VW “want to assert ownership of the entire ecosystem,” including driver data in order to monetize all the aftermarket potential, such as collaborating with insurers or gig-work companies. Volkswagen Group of America Inc. v. Smartcar, Inc., 5:21-cv- 04895 (N.D. Cal., filed June 25, 2021).

A similar case pits a company that provides payment processing services to utilities and other billers against Chatterjee’s client, a company that pays customers’ bills for landlords and other large property owners. Those landlords have a much easier time managing their property with his client’s service, he said. But the plaintiff objects to a third party using its tool to pay others’ bills. “Whether or not [the plaintiff] can do that is something that is being worked out in court.” ACI Payments Inc. v. Conservice LLC, 1:21-cv-00084 (D. Utah, filed June 4, 2021).

While he represents the users or consumers in those two cases, Chatterjee has also represented companies seeking to control user data. “I’ve lived on both sides of these issues because they can be fairly complex,” he said.

Another trend he sees in intellectual property litigation is a rising tide of high-value trade secrets matters. In the past, those cases would end with a preliminary injunction. “Today many more trade secrets cases are going to trial, and the damages awards … are extraordinary.”

That describes the web of litigation involving Google, Uber and his firm’s client, engineer Anthony Levandowski, over self-driving cars, where some awards and settlements have been in the nine-figure range.

In other matters, Chatterjee represents Purple Innovation LLC in patent and trade secrets litigation with a company that makes a product called the Intellibed. And he represents a developer of high-tech sensors being sued by Sleep Number Corp. “It turns out the mattress industry is extremely litigious.”

– Don DeBenedictis