Amy E. Simpson

Amy E. Simpson joined Holland & Knight LLP as a partner in 2023 to litigate patent cases and perform inter partes reviews. Her practice focuses on crafting business-driven solutions to clients' IP disputes and advising companies on how to use their patent assets to create revenue streams.

She is the former chair of Perkins Coie LLP's patent litigation practice. After getting her JD at the University of New Hampshire's Franklin Pierce School of Law, she obtained a master's in computer science at The George Washington University.

"I was working in D.C. at a patent prosecution boutique," Simpson recalled. "My window at the firm looked right into George Washington's engineering department. It caught my attention and my interest."

She continued to work part time and got her computer science master's at night. "That degree opened up a lot of possibilities," Simpson said. "It brought me to California, where I'd been wanting to move. Within a week [of graduation], I had an offer."

By now, Simpson has more than two decades of experience in offensive and defensive patent disputes and a 95%-win record when she defends her clients' patents in the inter partes review process.

The computer science degree still comes in handy, as in Simpson's representation of a major printing and imaging products provider, Lexmark International Inc. She had defended 16 wireless printing patents from four complaints.

"I can pretty much handle any technology in the high-tech space," Simpson said. When one litigation opponent, a maker of toner cartridges that Lexmark had accused of patent infringement, challenged 10 Lexmark patents before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Appeal Board, Simpson defeated institution of all 10 IPR petitions.

"That saved the client a ton of money because those rulings are not appealable. It's a hands-down win," she said.

She's recently settled favorably her most recent Lexmark case. Flexiworld Technologies Inc. v. Lexmark International Inc., 5:22-cv-00097 (E.D. Ky., filed April 14, 2022).

In another matter, Simpson secured summary judgment from U.S. District Judge Alan D. Albright of Waco, Texas, on the eve of a trial over an inventor's claims to a fundamental patent in light-emitting diode heat dispersion and rights to her clients' patent. The move came after Simpson poked many holes in the plaintiff case. It caused Albright to cancel a bench trial on 31 corrections of inventorship claims and an infringement jury trial. TruSun Technologies, LLC v. Eaton Corporation et al., 6:19-cv-00656 (W.D. Tex., filed Nov. 12, 2019).

"He basically gutted their case for us," Simpson said. "And he usually likes that stuff to go to trial."

-- John Roemer