Christina Von Der Ahe Rayburn

From a young age, Von der Ahe Rayburn often played mediator.

"A lifelong ability to translate issues that people might not understand into plain English, to explain things in simple terms," said Von der Ahe Rayburn, who has three older brothers. She could always tell what one of them was trying to explain to their parents. "I transported that into school. I would re-explain a student's question to a teacher and the other way around."

She also picked up a mechanical engineering degree from Stanford University.

In the field of intellectual property litigation, she believes both skills are assets, notably in a recent plaintiff's side victory. Shure Incorporated et. al. v. Clearone, Inc., 1:19-CV-01343-RGA (D. Del., filed Oct. 20, 2021).

"It was the bigger, stronger company adopting the little company's technology," Von der Ahe Rayburn said. "A David and Goliath story, if you will, where it seems they are trying to outspend our client because they can on the patent litigation front."

Clearone accused Shure of infringing a utility patent in Illinois. Shure, the bigger company, went out and got themselves a design patent to sue Clearone in Delaware.

"I don't see it as much as someone trying to steal the idea and rushing to patent it. It's usually more using the patented idea after the fact," Von der Ahe Rayburn explained.

The case in Delaware ended up going to trial first. Von der Ahe Rayburn's team got that design patent invalidated and found not to be infringed. "In Illinois, we also had significant wins. We were able to show the judge before the trial, before the jury verdict, that it was likely that Shure infringed the patent."

Clearone, the plaintiff, was granted a preliminary injunction against Shure, which forced the company to stop making the infringing product for the duration of the lawsuit. "Preliminary junctions are very hard to get in patent litigation cases and rare. But we went one step further: Shure created a design-around, a non-infringing product they could sell."

She continues: "We obtained that design-around and investigated it and realized that it wasn't a true design-around. In many instances, it operated in exactly the same infringing way." So, the team was able to move the court to find Shure in contempt for violating the preliminary injunction order.

That is the finding that Shure appealed to the federal circuit, where it was dismissed. "So we won." The district court judge has not yet decided how much money that finding of contempt is worth, but that case to Von der Ahe Rayburn is "another example of the importance of a lawyer who truly cares."

Caring may only be the start. "With a heavy lift and a lot of work." It took some very creative thinking to investigate it and track down the infringing nature of that design-around, she says, because of the nature of how these products are sold and used.

"It ended up me being late, late at night, going through Reddit message boards about this particular technology field and in that way I found enough evidence for the judge to reopen discovery to allow us to dig for more evidence."

Von der Ahe Rayburn confidently estimates that other legal teams would not have figured it out. "We needed to know how certain third parties installed this product and there was no direct way, especially if they are associated and working with Shure. They wouldn't talk to us and the discovery period was over, so we couldn't subpoena anybody."

- Ricardo Pineda