Anne Cappella  

Anne Cappella is a partner in her firm’s Silicon Valley office and focuses her practice on patent counseling and litigation involving complex and cutting-edge technologies. She has represented clients in a broad range of technologies, including smartphone manufacturers, semiconductor chip manufacturers and wireless carriers such as Microsoft, Intel, Samsung and T-Mobile.

A self-proclaimed “science nerd,” Cappella has a technical background that includes a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering with minors in computer science and mathematics. Before becoming an attorney, she served as an engineer and consultant for IBM.

“When you can speak an engineer’s language, they’re not only more forthcoming and more comfortable, but you can quickly obtain the information that they have that you need for your cases,” she said.

Since 2016, Cappella has represented intervener Intel Corp. in multi-patent cases brought by Alacritech against Intel’s customers, including Dell. Alacritech Inc. v. Dell Inc., 2:16-cv-00695-RWS-RSP (E.D. Tex.); Alacritech Inc. v. CenturyLink Communications LLC, et al., 2:16-cv-00693-RWS-RSP (E.D. Tex.) and Alacritech Inc. v. Wistron Corporation, et al., 2:16-cv-00692-RWS-RSP (E.D. Tex.); Nos. 19-1443, 19-1444, 19-1445, 19-1450, 19-1464, 19-1466, 19-1467, 19-1468, 22-2049(Fed. Cir.).

While the lawsuits targeted Intel’s customers, Intel intervened to defend against allegations of patent infringement based on Intel products that are incorporated into its customers’ devices. Alacritech alleged these networking products infringed eight patents directed to intelligent network interface controllers.

“It’s a significant matter because, at the heart of it, is networking technology. Intel makes Ethernet controllers. These connect a computer to a network to allow you to send email, surf the web and generally communicate over a network,” Cappella explained. “We’re talking about our modern society being built on these Ethernet controllers.”

In seeking to invalidate Alacritech’s claims, Cappella and her team examined the early work Intel did as one of the developers of the Ethernet standard, as well as work done by others in the area. She did a deep dive into the various accused products, how they work and the differences between them and the asserted patents.

“There were a lot of moving pieces to this saga,” she said. “We were quite successful. Most of the patents — including ones targeting a significant number of products — were found to be invalid, and those decisions were upheld on appeal. There’s one asserted claim that was remanded, and that’s back up on appeal now.”

The Federal Circuit affirmed the Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s decisions that more than 90 claims are unpatentable, eliminating a majority of the accused products from the case. The litigation is emerging from a long stay while a Federal Circuit appeal is pending for the one asserted claim.

In addition to her practice, Cappella frequently speaks on diversity and inclusion and actively provides pro bono services. She worked for more than a decade with the Center for Constitutional Rights and other organizations to secure a landmark class action settlement that ended indeterminate, long-term solitary confinement in all California state prisons.

—Jennifer Chung Klam