A. Matthew Ashley

Irell & Manella LLP partner A. Matthew Ashley represents clients in the complex realm of antitrust and unfair competition cases involving intellectual property claims.

In cases where tech companies sue those they label “patent trolls” or “patent assertion entities,” Ashley leads the defense. He boils down to its essence the plaintiff position he counters: “We’re talking about suing someone for suing you for patent infringement.”

For one oral argument, the semiconductor company plaintiffs suing Ashley’s client filed with the judge a slide deck illustrating their opposition to his motion to dismiss. One slide pictured the plaintiff-side view of his patent assertion entity client: a grinning green troll, complete with horns, reaching for a bundle of cash.

Ashley rejects that pejorative view. “We think our clients are innovators who are working to get paid fairly for their innovations.”

In late 2022, a federal appellate panel affirmed the dismissal Ashley and colleague Morgan Chu obtained for Irell clients Fortress Investment Group LLC and VLSI Technology, ending a suit filed by Apple Inc. and Intel Corp. The plaintiffs tested a novel patent aggregation theory that if successful, Ashley said, could have subjected patent owners to expanded antitrust liability for licensing and litigating their patents.

That major win led to a 2022 Daily Journal CLAY award as a Top Defense Verdict. Intel Corp. et al. v. Fortress Investment Group et al., 21-16817 (9th Cir., op. filed Nov. 8, 2022).

“The case got a lot of attention, and we are going to see continuing fights as people who are sued for patent infringement try to deter such suits by turning the suits themselves into the subject of litigation,” Ashley said.

As he predicted, a new case makes claims similar to those in the Fortress litigation. Ashley represents Future Link Systems LLS and IPValue Management Inc. as defendants in an antitrust and unfair competition matter filed by a chipmaker who labeled his clients patent trolls. Realtek Semiconductor Corp. v. MediaTek Inc. et al., 5:23-cv-02774 (N.D. Cal., filed June 6, 2023).

“Like the Intel v. Fortress action, Realtek’s antitrust case is a direct attack on constitutionally-protected petitioning activity, namely, the ability to file patent infringement actions,” Ashley said.

He argued in an October 2023 motion to dismiss that the Realtek complaint is barred by the Noerr-Pennington doctrine, which, Ashley contends, protects patent infringement suits from what amounts to a collateral attack on prior rulings favorable to his clients.

“Plaintiff’s Complaint is long on rhetoric and antitrust buzzwords but short on facts necessary to state a claim against Future Link,” Ashley wrote. A ruling on his motion is pending.

“This case represents a frontal assault on the underlying patent litigation itself,” Ashley said. “We are strongly disputing its merit.”

—John Roemer