Ryan Tyz

Ryan A. Tyz founded the IP litigation and counseling boutique Tyz Law Group PC in 2015 after a decade working at Fenwick & West LLP. Now staffed by 10 attorneys who identify themselves by their specialized training as “mathematician,” “engineer,” “rhetorician” and “strategist.”

“We’re all lawyers with complementary talents,” Tyz said. “We’ve tried to do away with dichotomies like partners and associates.” For instance, Erin C. Jones once worked for IBM, he pointed out. “She has 20 patents to her name.” Jones also has a Ph.D. in electrical engineering and computer sciences.

Another firm member, Sean K. Apple, has a magna cum laude JD and a bachelor’s degree in applied and computational mathematical sciences. Jonathan Downing has a summa cum laude JD and degrees in the humanities. He’s identified as “Attorney, Storyteller” on the firm’s site.

Tyz has also largely done away with the law office itself, though he does maintain a shared space in San Francisco’s Embarcadero Center. “We use a dispersed model,” he said from his own office in Larkspur in early May. “I’ll be going in tomorrow to prep a witness for a deposition. There are pros and cons, but our younger generation wants flexibility. Ninety-five percent of my team is made of Big Law refugees.”

His staff works from homes in Florida, Illinois, Indiana and Southern and Northern California. “If you can do quality work, that’s the metric that counts,” Tyz said. He maintains the billable model for some clients; for others, there’s a monthly fixed-fee subscription arrangement. “Clients love the budget predictability.”

A lot of Tyz Law Group’s work is in the video gaming sector; the firm maintains a Games Law blog that’s headed by a drawing of firm members costumed as gaming characters. Tyz calls them avatars. “I’m the ‘straight shooter,’” he said. An April 2023 blog entry details how some developers are cautiously experimenting with cutting costs by adapting AI to generate dialog and music.

In January, Tyz and his team won dismissal of a potential class action asserting that “loot boxes” featured in a client’s “Brawl Stars” and “Clash Royale” games constitute illegal gambling — an important issue for the industry. Client Supercell’s virtual currency is not a good or service meriting a claim under California’s Consumer Legal Remedies Act and the loot boxes are not slot machines or controlled games under California law. Mai et al. v. Supercell Oy, 5:20-cv-05573 (N.D. Cal., filed Aug. 11, 2020).

The plaintiff is challenging the dismissal at the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. “We expect the outcome to have a wide-ranging impact,” Tyz said.

—John Roemer