Harper Batts

With nearly two decades of experience in intellectual property litigation, Sheppard Mullin partner Harper Batts has been able to build a résumé that has garnered him national recognition as one of the most effective patent litigators in the field. He has represented numerous technology companies in many inter partes review proceedings and accumulated an institution rate of more than 95 percent.

In recent years, some of the companies Batts has secured wins for include Netflix, Hulu, Oracle, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) and Marvell Technology on both domestic and international scales.

“One of the unique aspects of this job is you have to pretty quickly become code proficient and knowledgeable about the different types of technologies and how to understand them,” Batts said. “One day you’re dealing with semiconductors, and then the next you jump into something like video streaming where you’re talking about things like encryption… The fun and challenge of this job is balancing that variety.”

Batts represented AMD, along with many of its customers, including Acer, HP, and Lenovo, last year in complex patent and infringement disputes filed by Bell Semiconductor.

One dispute included an International Trade Commission investigation and corresponding litigation in the Massachusetts district, which, in less than three months after the complaint was filed, Bell Semiconductor voluntarily terminated its International Trade Commission action, resulting in a complete win for AMD.

Bell Semiconductor then filed a second International Trade Commission investigation and additional lawsuits in the Massachusetts and Delaware districts that were ultimately settled favorably for Batts and his team not too long after.

“With this, we had to handle two different International Trade Commission investigations this past year against the same plaintiff, but we also simultaneously had to handle the district court litigations that were moving forward at the same time,” Batts said. “We really squeezed on the plaintiff and pushed them by staying ahead in the ITC, which is hard to do. We were driving things as a defendant. They recognized that and wanted out.”

In 2021, Batts represented Hulu in patent litigation brought by Pause Commercials, Inc. in regard to technology that inserted ads during pauses on the network’s video streams. Pause Commercials, Inc. v. Hulu, Inc., 2:2021cv02302 (C.D. Cal., filed March 15, 2021).

Following an early institution of an IPR on the asserted patent, Pause Commercials disclaimed all asserted claims and dismissed the litigation later that year, giving Batts and his team a complete win for Hulu.

“We filed a very quick IPR on the patent that was being asserted,” Batts explained. And after the filing of the IPR, the patent owner just gave up and gave away the claims to the public rather than to keep fighting. They gave up the claims and then just missed the litigation entirely. So that’s about as complete a win as you can get for patent litigation.”

—Devon Belcher