Robert A. Van Nest

SAN FRANCISCO - Robert A. Van Nest is set to have a busy fall. He has two big patent cases and a trade secrets case scheduled to go to trial during September and October.

For the first, he will defend Google against allegations some of its superfast math chips infringe on two patents owned by a small Massachusetts company. The case is set for a 10-day trial beginning Sept. 11. Singular Computing LLC v. Google LLC, 1:19-cv-12551 (D. Mass., filed Dec. 20, 2019).

Those math chips, called tensor processing units, help power the machine learning and artificial intelligence behind most of Google's main applications, including translation, Gmail and searches. Because the chips are an important internal product for Google, the damage claim is in the billions, he said.

"We have a very solid noninfringement defense ... as well as some very solid prior art that we think will invalidate the patents," Van Nest said.

About five weeks later, Van Nest will defend Dexcom Inc. in an infringement battle involving a dozen patents for continuous glucose monitoring devices. "It's part of a global patent licensing fight between the two biggest players in the ... [glucose monitoring] field," he said. "There are lawsuits between these companies pending all over the world." His case is set for trial in Delaware in late October. Abbott Diabetes Care Inc. v. Dexcom Inc., 1:21-cv-00977 (D. Del., filed July 1, 2021).

Another trial is tentatively set for a time between those two in early October. Van Nest will be defending well-known Silicon Valley chip designer Gerard Williams against claims by Apple that he stole trade secrets and employees when he left the company to form his own company, Nuvia Inc. Apple v. Williams, 19CV352866 (S. Clara Super. Ct., filed Aug. 7, 2019).

His defense will be that Williams started Nuvia to develop chips for servers, not consumer products, and so had no need for Apple's chip secrets, Van Nest said.

Besides those three, he may go to trial early next year to defend Netflix in a patent lawsuit from Broadcom.

Meanwhile, as he prepared for all those trials, he received a long-sought ruling from a San Francisco federal court judge dismissing most of an antitrust suit against his client Qualcomm Inc. that at one time was the largest consumer class action ever certified -- 250 million people and $5 billion in potential damages.

He won reversal of the certification from the 9th Circuit in September 2021, based in part on the circuit court's prior rejection of an FTC action raising basically the same claims against his client. The opinion was unusual for suggesting that the trial court should look carefully at whether the case should continue at all. Stromberg v. Qualcomm Inc., 19-15159 (9th Cir., decision Sept. 29, 2021)

On Jan. 6, Judge Jaqueline Scott Curley "dismissed the heart of the plaintiffs' case," Van Nest said in an email while allowing one narrow, peripheral claim under the Cartwright Act to continue.