DC’s Legal Departments of the Year

In a special report on Washington D.C.-area law firm litigation practices, The National Law Journal selected Finnegan as Legal Department of the Year for intellectual property. The report analyzed litigation department headcounts, revenues, wins and losses and pointed to Finnegan’s technical depth as a key strength that “keeps Finnegan on the front lines of precedent-setting intellectual property litigation.” Nearly 85 percent of professionals in Finnegan’s DC office hold degrees in computer science, electrical engineering, chemistry, or biology. “It’s why our clients trust us—because they know we speak their language,” said Finnegan partner Laura P. Masurovsky.

In May 2012, that technical background helped Finnegan earn a favorable Federal Circuit ruling for client Otsuka Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. The court upheld Otsuka’s drug patent and “clarified how a generic manufacturer can’t invalidate a patent just by showing that a new chemical compound is structurally similar to prior-art compound.” Finnegan partner James B. Monroe, who represented Otsuka, explained that, “in chemistry, it’s actually much, much more complicated than that. A one-atom change could take something that could save millions of lives and turn it into something completely inactive.”

Finnegan’s ranks also include former U.S. Patent and Trademark Office patent examiners. “We know the board—we’ve practiced before there. Not a lot firms have,” said managing partner Barbara C. McCurdy. That valuable experience recently came into play in “cutting-edge work” on behalf of client SAP in the first-ever PTAB post-grant review proceeding. NLJ also noted Finnegan victories before the Federal Circuit for Akamai Technologies, Inc. and the U.S. International Trade Commission for Research in Motion (RIM).