Supplement to the Los Angeles and San Francisco
APRIL 6, 2011
Intellectual Property A Word About this List Being a paid observer of the legal industry brings us a lot of enriching moments. But the absolute best part about our job is watching brilliant people facilitate creative ideas so that they blossom into real solutions. Nowhere is this more evident than in the intellectual property arena, in which lawyers draft and defend patents, copyrights and trademarks for medical cures, technological innovations and, of course, great entertainment. This is the fourth year the Daily Journal has published a Top Intellectual Property Lawyers list. In putting it together, editors read hundreds of nominations from lawyers. We also consult Daily Journal reporters who cover this field and read our coverage of the practice. To qualify, the lawyer must be based in California but his or
her work can be anywhere. Many of the litigators practice in the Eastern District of Texas but they also have cases in other federal districts and before the Federal Trade Commission in Washington, D.C. Portfolio managers work for companies in every corner of the globe. The most important criterion for making the list is the impact of the work. How has this work affected an industry or society? Did it create or save jobs? Did it help bring to market a cure? Save a technological innovation? The result is a lively mix of people doing fascinating work. There are tech gurus, science nerds and glitzy Hollywood folks. Read on. Get to know them. — The Editors
75 LEADING IP LITIGATORS Gail J. Standish Winston & Strawn LLP Los Angeles Patent, trade secrets Before law school, Gail Standish earned not one but two degrees in aeronautics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and rode in fighter jets during her stint as a flight test engineer in the U.S. Air Force. The experiences made interviewing for attorney positions later in life all the more interesting. “Nobody wanted to ask me hypothetical questions about constitutional law,” said Standish. “They all wanted to know what it was like flying in an F-16.” No longer in the military, Standish now wages battles against major pharmaceutical companies that try to delay generic drugs from hitting the market. Standish is currently facing drugmaker Eli Lilly & Co. in a patent case over the chemotherapy drug Gemzar, used to treat forms of lung, pancreatic, breast and ovarian cancers. Lilly sued Sun Pharmaceutical Industries to prevent a generic version of the drug from being produced, but Standish convinced a judge to declare that the plaintiff’s patents were unenforceable in Michigan, where Sun’s based. Standish also won a summary judgment motion that argued one of Lilly’s patents was invalid, a decision that was twice upheld on appeal. Lilly’s writ of certiorari with the U.S. Supreme Court is currently pending. Patent litigation over generic drugs can be exciting and stressful work, but for Standish and her clients, it comes with the business. “Companies plan for litigation — they budget for it,” Standish said. “They love it if you win for them, but they don’t love that you have to win for them.” Still, the cases give Standish a chance to ensure that inexpensive medicines become available. “I really enjoy getting generics to market as soon as I can,” she said. Another recent matter Standish was involved in: • Invalidated a Lilly patent at trial as co-lead defense counsel for Sun Pharmaceuticals in a dispute over the attention deficit hyperactivity disorder drug Strattera
— Jean-Luc Renault
Reprinted with permission from the Daily Journal. ©2011 Daily Journal Corporation. All rights reserved. Reprinted by Scoop ReprintSource 1-800-767-3263.
