Amy E. Proctor 

Amy E. Proctor has had quite a year. The young Irell & Manella partner has secured the largest patent infringement judgment in American history -- $2.3 billion.

"My favorite area [of a case] is figuring out damages," Proctor explained. "I love patent damages and my role overseeing and helping to design these damages with our experts."

Much of her winning formula is attributed to Proctor's love of math and digging into the economic value and technical benefit of a patent.

"When I started law school, I didn't know about this area of law," she said. "I thought it was an interesting career. When I found this area of law, I just fell in love."

Proctor has worked at Irell for 11 years, arriving after a yearlong stint clerking for U.S. District Court Judge John Kronstadt right out of law school.

At Irell, she is focused on patent litigation, including licensing, pretrial work, trials and appellate law for a wide range of industries, including tech, renewable energy and pharmaceuticals.

Her record-breaking judgment came on behalf of VLSI Technology, owner of patents for increasing performance and reducing power consumption in microprocessors. VLSI Technology LLC v. Intel Corp., 1:19-cv-00977 (W.D. Tex., filed April 11, 2019).

The jury award was $2.18 billion and the number swelled to $2.3 billion after the judge tacked on interest. Then, in November 2022, another jury awarded $948 million for Intel's infringement of a different patent. One more case is pending trial in California involving the same parties. "I was absolutely pleasantly surprised," Proctor said of her reaction to the November 2022 verdict. "The jury awarded the exact amount our expert calculated and asked for. That was really gratifying to see that the jury understood the case. Intel suggested the damages should be well under $100 million."

On the pharmaceutical side, Proctor won a $100 million settlement for Santarus, Inc., makers of the acid reflux drug Zegerid. Santarus had lost a patent infringement case against a rival drugmaker at the district court level in Delaware, but the matter was reversed by the Federal Circuit and settled shortly before trial in 2014.

She also co-led a team on behalf of Vestas, one of the world's largest wind turbine manufacturers, and obtained an amicable settlement with General Electric after developing damages theories and conducting expert depositions. This time, her client was the defendant and the case was dismissed.

--Tori Richards