Robert A. Van Nest

Late last year, Van Nest negotiated a favorable settlement for Comcast Cable Communications LLC and other cable providers after securing several pre-trial victories in a sweeping patent infringement case brought against them by C-Cation Technologies.

Van Nest led the defense of Comcast, Charter Communications Inc., CableOne Inc. and Cequel Communications LLC in the suit targeting the companies' high speed data and telephony services.

The lawsuit sought damages well into the nine figures, though Van Nest declined to share the exact amount. C-Cation Technologies v. Comcast Cable Communications LLC, 11-30 (E.D. Texas, filed Jan. 25, 2011).

During the first week of December, Van Nest and the parties gathered in Texas to prepare for trial and quickly reached an agreement.

That week, Van Nest also flew to Washington, D.C. to argue before a circuit panel on behalf of Google Inc. in a $6 billion patent and copyright case he successfully defended against Oracle Corp. Oracle America Inc. v. Google Inc., 10-03561 (N.D. Cal., filed Aug. 12, 2010).

"That was a busy week," he said.

In the Google case, Van Nest shielded the technology giant against Oracle's claim that Google infringed its Java application programming interface packages, or APIs. U.S. District Judge William Alsup agreed with Google that APIs are not copyrightable. Van Nest argued against Oracle's appeal.

He has had his hand in many of the leading IP issues of the day. Besides Google, his client roster includes Intel Corp. and Genentech Inc. Van Nest considers himself "extremely lucky."

"They are going to be involved in cutting edge issues," he said, "and therefore you're going to be involved in cutting edge issues."

- Katie Lucia