2022 Attorneys of the Year: Carlson Caspers’ Patent Litigation Team for CommScope Technologies LLC

A federal complex litigation case required the brainpower of three attorneys from Carlson Caspers Vandenburgh & Lindquist. The three proved to be a winning combination.

Philip P. Caspers, Samuel Hamer and William Bullard represented Shakopee-based CommScope Technologies. CommScope makes distributed antenna systems for cellular networks.

Litigating in federal district court in Delaware and before the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the team defeated four patent infringement accusations by California-based Dali Wireless, obtaining a final judgment of non-infringement in March 2022.

“For this type of litigation, it is essential that the team brings credibility from front to back,” Caspers said. “That means knowing the technology, knowing the patent office proceedings and how to effectively communicate with the PTAB judges, and knowing juries and how to effectively communicate with juries at trial.”

The team successfully challenged three patents before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) with petitions for inter partes review. This procedure allows for the validity of patents to be retried at the patent office.

The board issued a preliminary decision instituting trials on two patents. Dali agreed to cancel its patent claims and dismiss its counts for infringement on these patents. The remaining patent was disposed of in the U.S. District Court for Delaware, where the team won summary judgment of non-infringement.

The Carlson team established during depositions and at trial through Dali’s CEO that its client’s patent portfolio had become well-known in the industry and that Dali had even been warned by competitors of CommScope’s fundamental patent portfolio.

“Our team knows technology, knows patent office proceedings and how best to present complex technology issues to patent office judges, and knows juries and how to simplify the technology in plain terms for the jury,” said Caspers. “When the jury hears that defendant ignored warnings from the industry that client’s innovations were fundamental and famous, that defendant is likely to lose big. And that is what happened.”

Read more about Minnesota Lawyer’s superb class of Attorneys of the Year for 2022 here.