Darin W. Snyder

As a former head of Northern California litigation for O’Melveny — as well as a member of its executive committee — Snyder was the firm’s partner in charge of over three dozen IP matters last year, about a third of them representing Google.

In addition, he tried two patent cases and a trade secrets case through to jury verdicts. He also conducted and won a hearing for a preliminary injunction on trade secrets and a noncompete provision, and he completed a trial before the U.S. International Trade Commission in a patent case that settled the day before the decision was due.

“I actually tried four cases and had a preliminary injunction hearing. That’s not typical,” he said. “And there’s a good chance that I’ll have a few trials this year.”

But he said perhaps the most significant case he worked on last year resulted in an important decision from the U.S. Circuit Court for the Federal Circuit. The court’s ruling last June allowed him to move twin patent cases against Samsung and LG from West Texas to Northern California and likely cut off a novel attempt to evade venue requirements.

The lawsuits allege the two electronics companies infringed four patents owned by Ikorongo Technology LLC in North Carolina. But that company created a new subsidiary called Ikorongo Texas LLC and assigned to it the exclusive right to sue for patent infringement in West Texas. The parent company retained the right to sue elsewhere. Thus, the Ikorongos argued, the suit had to remain in the Western District of Texas.

“The expectation was if this approach were approved, it would be adopted by every patent assertion entity that is filing in [Texas]… despite strong reasons to move [cases] based on traditional forum non conveniens principles,” Snyder said.

Instead, the appellate court ruled it would not tolerate such a ruse to manipulate venue, he said. Ikorongo has asked the Supreme Court to take the case, but Snyder’s team chose not to respond. “We think the Federal Circuit got this one right.” Ikorongo Texas LLC v. Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., 21-1085 (U.S. S. Ct., filed Dec. 28, 2021).

Of the matters he tried last year, he successfully defended Google from an allegation its Google Hub infringed a patent owned by Profectus Technology LLC for an electronic “smart” picture frame. He obtained a preliminary injunction preventing a senior executive from health care services firm CareCentrix, Inc. from going to work for a competitor.

Two other jury trials did not go so well. A jury awarded an inventor of online chat applications $30 million in damages against Snyder’s client, although the plaintiff sought $100 million. A different jury declined to find a competitor had infringed his client’s patents on technology that allows someone to surf unattached behind a powerboat.

As for this year, he is scheduled to go to trial in May defending Samsung in a patent case about touchscreens and again in September for Wayz, Samsung and Google on navigation technology.

“As you can tell, I keep track of a lot of cases.”

– Don DeBenedictis