Alan Peter Block

Specialty / focus areas. Alan Peter Block is a principal in the Los Angeles office of McKool Smith (conducting business in California as McKool Smith Hennigan, P.C.), where he concentrates on patent litigation and post-issuance proceedings before the USPTO. Per the firm's bio, his matters span computer hardware and software, digital audio/video creation and transmission, database search systems, multithreaded programming, optical lenses, and pharmaceutical treatments, with earlier prosecution work in mechanical devices, biotechnology, and chemistry. The tracked matters (voice-enabled/voice-browser software asserted against Samsung) fit his software and user-interface focus.

Side preference. His two tracked appearances are both plaintiff-side, representing Parus Holdings, a non-practicing entity, against Samsung in the Western District of Texas (No. 6:21-cv-01073-ADA, filed Oct. 15, 2021). The firm bio, however, describes a genuinely two-sided practice — "on behalf of both plaintiffs and defendants" — and he is verifiably appearing for operating companies as well, including defendant American Airlines in Intellectual Ventures I LLC v. American Airlines, Inc. (E.D. Tex. 4:24-cv-00980) and as back-up petitioner's counsel in IPR2025-00782 (American Airlines v. Intellectual Ventures II). He has also appeared for patentee K-fee against Nespresso and for plaintiff AML IP against Blizzard.

Firm context. He joined McKool Smith after being a partner at Oppenheimer, Wolff & Donnelly; earlier career stints included Poms, Smith, Lande & Rose (per third-party directories; less reliably sourced).

Notable cases / outcomes. The tracked Parus v. Samsung district court action closed in February 2023 following settlement — the parties filed a joint motion to terminate the related IPR2023-00162 (U.S. Patent No. 6,721,705), citing a confidential binding release resolving both the IPR and the district case. In the parallel IPRs that Google, Samsung, and LG brought against Parus's related patents ('431 and '084), McKool Smith represented Parus as patent owner; the Federal Circuit affirmed the PTAB's obviousness findings in Parus Holdings v. Google LLC (Fed. Cir., June 12, 2023). Block's own role was in the district court litigation rather than the IPR briefs, so his personal responsibility for that appeal result is not established from the record.

PTAB / IPR experience. Yes — his practice explicitly includes post-issuance USPTO proceedings, and he currently serves as backup counsel in a 2025 IPR for American Airlines; McKool Smith's broader PTAB practice (including PTAB defenses of Parus) has been publicly highlighted.

Bar / education. California bar (1989); registered before the USPTO; J.D., UCLA School of Law (1989); B.S. chemical engineering, Cornell University (1986); admitted to the Federal Circuit, Ninth Circuit, and U.S. Supreme Court.