Betty H. Chen

Betty H. Chen is a principal at Fish & Richardson P.C., where she specializes in patent litigation. She has achieved impressive firsts: she graduated from law school at 21 and became the youngest principal ever to work at the firm. She’s also the first minority woman to serve as Fish & Richardson’s hiring chief. She speaks English and Mandarin Chinese.

She’s had powerful mentors. Alan D. Albright, then the Fish & Richardson partner who would become a well-known federal judge, first hired Chen to the firm in 2008. When Chen wished to relocate to California, Katherine K. Vidal, then the Fish & Richardson partner who would become director of the USPTO, hired her again.

Chen finds her field ever interesting. “We’re awaiting a tsunami of fascinating AI litigation,” she said. “I’m excited about this novel area of law. At what point is the human or the AI machine the inventor?”

She noted that the U.S. Supreme Court in late April rejected a cert petition that asked it to decide whether AI can be a patent inventor after a federal appellate panel said no. Thaler v. Vidal, 22-219 (S.Ct., cert. denied Apr. 24, 2023). Chen wasn’t involved, but she predicted we haven’t heard the last of that controversy.

In January, Chen won $43.4 million plus $1.1 million in fees for defendant Overhead Door Corp. in a contentious pair of patent infringement trials over garage door opener technology. On the Sunday night before jury selection, plaintiff counsel emailed her and the judge to notify them that new facts had come to light.

“I pulled my first all-nighter in a long time writing a sanctions motion, which I filed at 6 a.m. Monday,” Chen said. The judge tabled Chen’s motion and let the trial go ahead. Then he partly reversed a pro-plaintiff verdict and ordered a partial retrial. Chen, using the tardily-furnished evidence, won the big judgment plus fees as a sanction. The Chamberlain Group LLC v. Overhead Door Corp. et al., 2:21-cv-00084 (E.D. Tex., filed March 10, 2021).

In a current case, she’s representing Skull Shaver LLC, the inventor of an electric shaver with a novel design for closely clipping the entire head. The problem was overseas knockoffs, so Chen advised seeking a general exclusion order from the International Trade Commission. In the Matter of Certain Electronic Shavers and Components and Accessories Thereof, 337-TA-1230 (ITC, filed Oct. 13, 2020).

Chen got the exclusion order and has proceeded to enforce it by training custom agents and potential sellers like Amazon to spot infringing products.

Chen likes her job. “You think this is well-settled law until something like AI comes along and makes it really fun again,” she said.

—John Roemer