Michelle E. Armond

Armond has worked for decades in patent law, helping a variety of clients defend and defeat patent claims. She graduated from Caltech with an electrical engineering degree.

“Most of the cases that I handle draw really heavily on my background in engineering,” she said.

Armond founded Armond Wilson LLP with Douglas R. Wilson, whom she first met while clerking for the same judge.

“We’ve had a really busy year… particularly at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board,” she said. “We just moved into a brand new headquarters in Newport Beach. Despite the fact that our firm is only three years old, our growth has been really incredible. In the last 18 months, we’ve added three new attorneys.”

In one case, Armond represented VideoShare LLC, which challenged Google over infringement of its patent of converting a video to multiple formats and transmitting it in the best format for a user’s device. Google filed two challenges against VideoShare to cancel the patent.

Armond said, “We defeated Google and decisively won two separate challenges against the patent laws of video streaming technology. Our client went on and got a $26 million jury verdict on that patent.” Google v. VideoShare, Nos. CBM2020- 00027, IPR2020-01631 (PTAB op. Filed Sept. 15, 2020).

Armond has argued against many large name tech companies, defending Advanced Micro Devices from a patent challenger.

She also defeated Sony, where they received a final verdict confirming the patentability of the invention by their client, Intellectual Pixels. Advanced Micro Devices v. Monterey Research, IPR2020-01124 (PTAB, op. Filed June 17, 2020).

“There we had a client who had a patent on video game graphics,” Armond said. “We got a rare final verdict where the Patent Trial and Appeal Board confirmed the patentability of the invention.” Sony Interactive Entertainment v. Intellectual Pixels, IPR2020-01248 (PTAB op. Filed July 8, 2020).

Many of the patents the firm defends are foundational to the inventions being discussed. Armond’s background in engineering has been handy in learning various kinds of technology.

“The types of cases we usually handle are very high stakes cases that are also highly technical,” she said. “Everyone in our firm has a science or engineering background. You also really need to be deep into the technology. That’s particularly important at the PTAB, because you have a three-judge panel and those judges are technically trained and they really understand and dig in on the technical details.”

Many of Armond’s cases go to the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals in D.C. The firm works to have an appellate strategy in place from the start of their cases.

“We’ve been involved in hundreds of appeals.” Armond said.

Patent law, according to Armond, is “evolving really, really quickly. You really have to be up to the minute current because the patent trial and appeal board in its current incarnation is really a little bit more than 10 years old. In that short time frame, the federal circuit has really created a whole new body of law for these cases. They’ve made incredible progress, but there’s still a lot of open questions and gaps to fill.”

Armond is also a speaker on patent law, participating in the Sedona Conference alongside other leading IP professionals and judges. She is a member of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board Association, the Federal Circuit Appellate Committee and the Federal Circuit Bar association.

--Christer Schmidt