Ron Hagiz is Chief Technology Counsel in Quinn Emanuel’s New York office. He joined the firm in 2011. His practice focuses on complex intellectual property disputes at every stage of litigation, from pre-dispute counseling through trial and appeal. He has extensive experience litigating intellectual property and technology-related disputes, particularly involving patents, copyrights, and trade secrets, and the intersection of intellectual property law with other areas of law, such as antitrust and competition law. He has also regularly litigated and advised clients on intellectual property issues relating to standards-setting organizations and standards-essential patents, particularly involving cellular and wireless communication technologies. Ron has also litigated business disputes involving claims such as breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duty, tortious interference with contract, and unfair competition.
Ron’s intellectual property practice spans a range of different technologies across multiple spheres of engineering, including cellular and wireless communication chips, mobile devices, video and security cameras, computer processors, backup and storage systems, online and mobile games, 3D printers, and medical research devices (such as flow cytometry analyzers and sorters). In addition to litigation advice and representation, Ron also provides pre-suit consultation to assist companies in assessing the strength of their patent portfolio and to evaluate potential litigation risks for new products.
Prior to joining the firm, Ron attended New York University School of Law, where he received his JD, and University of Michigan, Ann Arbor College of Engineering, where he received degrees in electrical engineering and computer engineering. Ron was also involved with NYU’s Mediation Clinic and served as an extern at the Legal Aid Society in New York.
- Accenture
- Access Industries
- Alibaba
- Becton Dickinson
- BlackBerry
- California Institute of Technology
- Gilead
- Markforged
- Mediatek
- NVIDIA
- PACT XPP Schweiz
- Proofpoint
- Samsung
- Skillz
- Sony
- Toshiba
- Verkada
- Representing plaintiffs Proofpoint and Cloudmark in trade secret, copyright, and breach of contract claims brought against Vade Secure and CTO Olivier Lemarié in the Northern District of California. Plaintiffs alleged that several former employees (including Mr. Lemarié) misappropriated trade secrets and copied source code relating to Cloudmark’s anti-spear phishing and other e-mail security products and used them to develop competing products for Vade Secure. Ron was part of the core trial team and conducted direct and cross examinations of fact and expert witnesses at trial. After a three week trial, the jury returned a verdict that Vade Secure infringed plaintiffs’ copyrights, misappropriated the majority of the asserted trade secrets willfully, and that Mr. Lemarié breached his employment contracts with Cloudmark, and awarded $13.5 million in compensatory damages. (https://www.zdnet.com/article/proofpoint-awarded-13-5-million-in-ip-theft-lawsuit-against-vade-secure/).
- Representing plaintiff PACT XPP Schweiz in a patent infringement action against Intel in the District of Delaware, involving PACT’s patents relating to power management and bus architectures used in computer processors. The district court case was stayed pending inter partes reviews filed on behalf of Intel with the Patent Trial and Appeal Board. The PTAB declined to institute an IPR on two of the challenged patents, and returned final written decisions upholding the validity of one or more claims on four other challenged patents. Ron briefed and argued two of the IPRs that resulted in favorable written decisions from the PTAB. The case has now returned to district court, where it is proceeding on the six upheld patents.
- Representing plaintiff Caltech in a patent infringement action against Broadcom and Apple in the Central District of California. The case involves three patents relating to a seminal class of error correction codes invented by Caltech called Irregular Repeat and Accumulate (“IRA”) codes. IRA codes are fundamental to the 802.11n and 802.11ac standards and are used in Wi-Fi chips made by Broadcom and incorporated into Apple’s products. The case made headlines after a jury found all five asserted claims infringed by Apple and Broadcom and awarded Caltech $1.1 billion in damages. (https://www.law360.com/articles/1238923/apple-broadcom-hit-with-1-1b-verdict-in-caltech-patent-suit)
- Represented defendant Markforged in a bet-the-company case brought by competitor Desktop Metal in the District of Massachusetts. The case proceeded on an extraordinarily expedited schedule, spanning less than five months from the filing of the complaint to trial on Desktop Metal’s patent claims. After a three-week trial, the jury returned a verdict exonerating Markforged and finding that either of Desktop Metal’s two patents was infringed. This remarkable case and victory is discussed in the Law360 article titled “Rocket-er Docket: Mass. IP Case Sees 2 Trials in 6 Months.”
- Represented defendant Alibaba.com Hong Kong Limited in a patent and trademark infringement case brought by Altinex, Inc. in the Central District of California based on alleged offerings by third-party suppliers of certain products on the Alibaba.com and AliExpress websites. The Court granted summary judgment for Alibaba on all claims, finding that Alibaba could not be held liable for infringement based on products listed and sold on its websites by third parties.
- Represented defendant Gilead in two cases involving antitrust claims alleging that Gilead unlawfully refused to deal with companies seeking to develop generic drugs based on Gilead’s implementation of a Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy (REMS) program for its Letairis® (ambrisentan) drug product. In a first-of-its-kind decision on REMS-based antitrust claims, the District of Minnesota dismissed the first case in its entirety, and the second case was voluntarily dismissed several months later.
- Represented Samsung in its global intellectual property disputes against Apple relating to smartphone and tablet technology. Helped Samsung develop its global Standards-Essential Patent (SEP) strategy and defend against Apple’s allegations that Samsung has violated obligations to license its patents on Fair, Reasonable, and Non-Discriminatory (FRAND) terms and conditions. Part of the trial team that defended Samsung in the first Northern District of California action, and in Apple’s offensive action before the U.S. International Trade Commission (Inv. No. 337-TA-796), both involving design patents and utility patents asserted by Apple. Successfully obtained a final determination at the ITC that limited the effect of the exclusion order to products that were no longer in circulation. To date, no Samsung product has been excluded pursuant to the exclusion order.
- Representing Fundamental Innovation Systems International in several lawsuits asserting its patents covering USB battery charging technologies originally developed by BlackBerry and ubiquitously used in modern-day mobile devices. The results of these representations have fueled substantial settlements and extensive licensing of Fundamental’s patent portfolio, including licenses to over fifty companies that have collectively paid hundreds of millions of dollars in royalties.
- Represented defendant BlackBerry in two patent lawsuits brought by PanOptis Patent Management LLC in the Eastern District of Texas, where the plaintiffs asserted six patents purporting to be LTE standard essential and two patents relating to other mobile device features. The case settled favorably shortly after claim construction.
- Represented defendant BlackBerry in a patent lawsuit brought by VStream Technologies, LLC in the Eastern District of Texas, where the plaintiff asserted five patents purporting to cover digital video compression and decompression against BlackBerry’s handsets that support HD video capture and playback. The case was voluntarily dismissed before the close of discovery.
- Represented defendant Sony Computer Entertainment America and Sony Electronics Inc. against patent infringement claims brought by plaintiff Microlinc in the Eastern District of Texas. The plaintiff claimed Sony’s PlayStation 3 game consoles and Sony Vaio computer products infringed a patent purporting to cover packet-based communications in computer systems. The case settled favorably before the close of discovery.
- New York University School of Law
(J.D., 2009) - University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
(B.S.E., summa cum laude, Electrical Engineering; Computer Engineering, 2004)- Dean's List
- The State Bar of New York
- United States District Courts:
- Southern District of New York
- Eastern District of New York
- Hebrew
- Spanish
- Ropes & Gray LLP, New York, New York:
- Associate, 2010-2011
- New York Metro Super Lawyers Rising Star, 2015-2021
- Legal Aid Society Pro Bono Publico Award, 2010
- New York Intellectual Property Law Association (NYIPLA)
- Esports Bar Association