Whether You're Stopping Your Competitors from Stealing your ideas, or defending your company against an invalid patent, we're there for you.
Patent Litigation and Enforcement
Patent litigation is expensive, slow, and uncertain — and often unavoidable. A case litigated through trial can cost $3 to $10 million per side and take three to five years. So why do companies do it? Because the alternative — ignoring infringement, or caving to a weak assertion without proper analysis — often costs more in the long run.
The Patent Trial and Appeal Board numbers give context for the defense side: in FY2024, 68 percent of inter partes review petitions were instituted — meaning the Board agreed the patent deserved a closer look. Among cases reaching final written decision, the patent survived with all claims intact in only 4 percent of cases. Those numbers shape every negotiation involving a challenged patent.
Gary Shuster brings something genuinely unusual to patent litigation: he is himself an inventor with 262 issued US patents across dozens of technology fields, who is also a patent prosecutor and litigator. When he reads a claim, he reads it as someone who has written thousands of claims with specific defensive and offensive purposes — who knows how examiners, judges, and competitors interpret the language. That combination changes the quality of analysis.
Improving Inventions
Claim construction is where most patent cases are decided. Courts interpret claim terms at the Markman hearing, and that interpretation is binding for the rest of the litigation. A term construed narrowly may not cover the accused product. Construed broadly, the patent can generate enormous settlement pressure. The prosecution history — what the applicant said and did during examination — shapes how courts read claims years later.
The IPR decision must be made within one year of service of a complaint. Filing creates estoppel that limits what prior art you can raise in district court later. Timing the IPR against the district court schedule, deciding which claims to challenge, and coordinating the validity and infringement arguments requires managing both proceedings simultaneously from day one.
For patent owners, the decision about when and how to send a demand letter is equally strategic. A poorly-drafted letter can trigger a declaratory judgment action in the accused infringer’s preferred forum before you’ve chosen your own. Moving too slowly signals that the infringement is tolerable.
Let’s Protect Your Innovation Together
We represent both patent owners and accused infringers in federal district court and at the PTAB. Our cases typically involve technology, software, AI, hardware, medical devices, and consumer electronics — areas where technical fluency in the underlying technology matters as much as legal skill.
We practice in Texas (including the Eastern and Western Districts), DC, California, and Colorado, with affiliated trial counsel in other federal districts as needed. Related services: Patent Validity Challenges · Comprehensive Patent Strategy