Melissa J. Baily

Antitrust & Competition, Life Sciences Litigation, Securities Litigation & International Arbitration

San Francisco

Melissa Baily is an accomplished attorney with a focus on intellectual property litigation, a field she has been dedicated to since 2003. Her journey in law began with work on Enron-related investigations and litigation in New York.

"Intellectual property law appealed to me because it afforded the opportunity to delve deeply into new and niche technologies - specialized drug formulation methods, LiDAR for self-driving cars, and printing synthetic DNA, for example," Baily said. "Learning the ins and outs of these technologies from experts at the forefront of their fields - and telling their innovation stories to judges and juries - rank among the best parts of the job."

Her recent casework includes helping her client Google thwart a final payday for Personal Audio when it won judgment as a matter of law following a jury trial in June 2023. Also, as lead counsel for Johns Manville (a Berkshire Hathaway company), in a case brought by its competitor, Knauf Insulation, alleging infringement of one design patent and six utility patents related to manufacturing insulation. After extensive discovery, the judge granted summary judgment on all six patents in favor of Baily's client.

Her prowess was notably demonstrated in an extensive litigation campaign where Sonos claimed infringement of six patents by various Google products and services. Sonos, Inc. v. Google LLC, 3:20-cv-06754 (N.D. Cal., filed Sept. 28, 2020)

Baily played a pivotal role in the case, successfully challenging four of the patents and significantly reducing the damages sought by Sonos from over $3 billion to nearly $90 million.

"We successfully knocked out four of the asserted patents through Judge Alsup's 'patent showdown' process and other pre-trial motion practice," Baily said, adding: "After I cross-examined Sonos's damages expert at trial, the Court decided that Sonos's damages analysis was unreliable and struck it on Daubert grounds. And following post-trial briefing, Judge Alsup found the remaining Sonos patents to be unenforceable, recognizing that Google was the true innovator and Sonos was a 'pretender.'"

Baily said the outcome was real vindication for the many Google engineers who worked hard to make the products and services at issue possible.

"The ultimate 'win' was made possible only because of numerous successes along the way -- obtaining summary judgment on two of the originally asserted patents, having Sonos's damages theories excluded, and then the final finding of unenforceability on the only remaining patents," she explained. "We knew the facts and we believed in our positions from the start. But we had to trust the process, no matter how long and difficult it seemed at times."