Drew Holmes is a partner, trial lawyer, and registered patent attorney in San Francisco. Drew represents companies at trial, in litigation, at the International Trade Commission, before the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office, and in arbitration in a variety of disputes relating to patents, trade secrets, copyrights, employee mobility issues, contracts, licensing, and other complex commercial issues. Drew also has counseled clients on internal investigations.
Drew has cross examined witnesses at trial and in international arbitration, argued in federal courts around the country, deposed technical experts as well as apex corporate executives, and argued as lead counsel before the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office's Patent Trial & Appeal Board. Drew has experience with a wide variety of technology including graphics processing/architecture, semiconductors, telecommunications, artificial intelligence, streaming, digital rights management, content delivery systems, payment systems, network security, financial/banking business methods, light emitting diodes, integrated circuits, small molecule drugs, diagnostics, pharmaceuticals, casino/gaming machines and systems, and various consumer electronics. Drew’s litigation and trial successes have been widely covered in both industry and legal press including Law360, Courthouse News, Network World, and TechDirt, among others.
Drew holds a degree in molecular and cell biology with a specialty in neural circuits from U.C. Berkeley, and he graduated magna cum laude and Order of the Coif from U.C. Hastings College of the Law, where he was the senior production editor of the Hastings Law Journal and was admitted into the Thurston Honors Society.
Drew continues to be active at U.C. Berkeley, and currently sits on the board of a charitable foundation that recognizes and awards scholarships to leaders in the U.C. Berkeley undergraduate community.
- Array BioPharma
- Cisco
- Fortinet
- HTC
- Hulu
- IBM
- JUUL
- Natera
- Netflix
- NVIDIA
- Qualcomm
- Samsung
- Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company
- Representing Array BioPharma (now owned by Pfizer) in a trade secret, contract, and fiduciary duty dispute against Loxo Oncology (now owned by Eli Lilly) in the District of Colorado. The technology generally relates to small molecule drug research and development for cancer treatment.
- Representing Natera against CareDX in patent and false advertising cases relating to transplant diagnostic testing and cell-free DNA. The cases are pending in the District of Delaware.
- Representing Fortinet against Finjan in the Northern District of California. Finjan has asserted eight patents against Fortinet generally related to computer and network security technology.
- Representing Fortinet against Alorica in California state court in a commercial dispute relating to networking equipment.
- Representing Netflix and Hulu in patents cases in the Central District of California filed by DivX. The asserted patents generally relate to encryption, deblocking, and indexing streamed content.
- Representing Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company in four patent infringement cases in the District of Delaware relating to semiconductor fabrication and processing technology.
- Represented NVIDIA Corporation, a pioneering developer of graphics processing technology, in patent infringement actions filed by ZiiLabs (a subsidiary of Creative Labs) in the District of Delaware and at the International Trade Commission (“ITC”). ZiiLabs alleged that various NVIDIA GPUs along with graphics cards and computers containing the same infringe eight patents relating to graphics processing and rendering technology. ZiiLabs previously sued Apple, Samsung, ARM, AMD, Sony, Qualcomm, Lenovo, MediaTek and LG and obtain substantial settlements. During the ITC investigation, the ALJ terminated one of the four asserted patents from the ITC investigation, denied ZiiLabs’ Motion for Summary Determination on the Economic Prong of the Domestic Industry Requirement, denied all relevant portions of ZiiLabs’ motion to strike our expert reports, and granted large portions of our own motion to strike, include striking the vast majority of ZiiLabs’ validity case for one patent. On the eve of trial—with multiple, case dispositive, motions for summary determination pending—the parties resolved the multiple pending actions on confidential terms.
- Represented NVIDIA Corporation against Blue Spike in a patent infringement case in the Eastern District of Texas. We successful defeated Blue Spike’s attempt to move its case against NVIDIA and numerous other cases into consolidated MDL proceedings, and the case settled on confidential terms thereafter.
- Represented International Business Machines and Softlayer Technologies in a patent infringement case relating to data center technology filed by ZitoVault. The case was originally filed in the Eastern District of Texas but we successfully got it transferred to the Northern District of Texas. After expert reports were exchanged, the case settled on confidential terms.
- Represented Qualcomm in a patent infringement action against Apple in the International Trade Commission (ITC) and in the Southern District of California. Qualcomm alleged that Apple engaged in the unlawful importation and sale of iPhones that infringe one or more claims of five Qualcomm patents covering key technologies that enable important features and function in the iPhones. After trials at the ITC and district court that resulted in infringement findings against Apple, the case settle on confidential terms.
- Represented Netflix, Inc. as lead counsel in two inter partes review proceedings challenging the validity of patents owned by Affinity Labs of Texas, LLC relating to streaming systems for digitally stored audio, video, and textual content. Following the Oral Hearing, the PTAB issued Final Written Decisions in each proceeding finding that all challenged claims were unpatentable. Affinity appealed the PTAB invalidly decisions but shortly after the case settled on confidential terms, and Affinity dismissed the district court action as well as its appeals.
- Represented and argued on behalf of Google in five covered business method review proceedings before the U.S. Patent Trial & Appeal Board (“PTAB”) challenging patents owned by Smartflash under 35 U.S.C. 101. After two trial hearings before expanded panels, the PTAB invalidated all challenged claims in favor of our client.
- Represented Samsung and HTC in a patent case related to the online payment for and distribution of content, such as apps, videos, and music. Weeks before trial, we obtained a first-of-its-kind reversal of the district court order denying a motion to stay the case pending covered business method review of the patents by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board. See Smartflash LLC v. Apple Inc., Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., Samsung Electronics America, Inc., Samsung Telecommunications America, LLC, HTC Corporation, HTC America, Inc., Exedea, Inc., 621 Fed.Appx. 995 (Fed. Cir. 2016). The national press touted this win as “an important victory . . . that may ultimately save the compan[ies] hundreds of millions of dollars.” http://www.cnet.com/news/samsungs-battle-with-smartflash-put-on-hold-over-patent-scrutiny/. The patents were subsequently invalidated by the PTAB, and final judgment was entered in favor of Samsung and HTC.
- Represented RF Micro Devices in a patent infringement action brought by Peregrine Semiconductor, alleging infringement of five US patents. After defeating a preliminary injunction motion, we successfully convinced the court to dismiss half of the patents asserted against our client (involving semiconductors used in RF switches) and thereafter the case settled favorably for our client.
- Represented Fortinet against Network Protection Sciences (“NPS”). NPS asserted patent claims against Fortinet in federal court (N.D. Cal.), asked for damages of $18 million, and asked for trebling of damages to over $53 million. We procured multiple court orders finding that NPS had engaged in litigation misconduct, including an “extensive cover-up” and “attempt[s] to conceal evidence.” NPS thereafter abandoned its case and asked for dismissal with prejudice. As disclosed in SEC filings, Fortinet paid nothing to NPS. This victory was covered widely in the press—including articles from Law360, Courthouse News, Network World, TechDirt and Boing Boing. For example, from Law360: “Patent Troll Drops Suit After Judge Calls Case a ‘Sham.’” From TechEye: “Judge Alsup Kicks Patent Troll in the Patents.” And from Network World: “What does Fortinet think of the judge’s decision? A spokesman tells me the company’s legal team would have no comment, most likely because they haven’t been able to stop laughing.” Some months later, the publication Network World identified NPS as the top “tech turkey” for the year, on the basis of its losing lawsuit: “Cheers to the judge for calling them out as a sham, and here’s to you for being a turkey, Network Protections.”
- Represented Fortinet against Sophos in a multi-venue fight (N.D. Cal., D. Del., JAMS arbitration and PTAB proceedings) asserting claims for patent infringement, trade secret misappropriation, employee poaching, and contract interference. After an arbitration victory and the defeat of Sophos’ summary judgment motion on trade secret claims, Sophos “announced… that it will pay to settle a lawsuit by Fortinet” (Law360). The amount that Sophos paid was confidential.
- Represented Bally Technologies, a pioneer in the design of slot machine and player tracking technology, in patent litigation against International Gaming Technology. The case settled favorably for our client.
- Represented client Metaswitch at two jury trials and one bench trial in the Eastern District of Texas.
- Represented Samsung against Apple in one of the “smart phone wars” retrials on damages in the Northern District of California.
- University of California, Hastings College of the Law
(J.D., magna cum laude, 2008)- Order of the Coif
- Thurston Honors Society
- Hastings Law Journal:
- Senior Production Editor, 2007-2008
- Editor, 2006-2007
- University of California, Berkeley
(B.A., Molecular & Cell Biology, Neurobiology Emphasis, 2004)
- The State Bar of California
- United States District Courts:
- Northern District of California
- Central District of California
- Southern District of California
- Eastern District of Texas
- United States Court of Appeals:
- Federal Circuit
- Ninth Circuit
- Tenth Circuit
- Registered to practice before the United States Patent and Trademark Office
- Selected as a 2018 Law360 “Rising Star” for Intellectual Property
- Consequences of the Federal Circuit's New Reliance on Federal Common Law to Interpret Patent Assignment Agreements, Landslide, ABA Section of Intellectual Property, Vol. 3, No. 3 (2011) (co-author).
- Don’t Mess With Texas: Transferring Venue to California, New Matter, Intellectual Property Law Section of the State Bar of California, Vol. 34, No. 1 (2009) (co-author).