Brett M. Schuman

Brett M. Schuman — Goodwin Procter LLP (San Francisco)

Focus areas. Schuman is co-chair of Goodwin's Intellectual Property Litigation practice and serves as lead trial counsel in patent disputes spanning broadband communications, semiconductors and semiconductor fabrication, mobile phone technology, wearables, medical devices, computer software, and pharmaceuticals/biologics. His tracked matters reflect that range: the Regeneron aflibercept BPCIA litigation on the pharma side, and the Pedersen v. Mailgun Technologies / Pedersen v. J2 Global suits on the software/email-infrastructure side. Firm and directory bios (Chambers, IAM Patent 1000, Goodwin's site) also list CommScope/2Wire, Microchip, Applied Materials, Atmel, ARRIS, Cisco, Keysight, and Vantiva as patent clients. He maintains an active Federal Circuit appellate practice and a substantial trade secret/copyright docket, and he co-founded Goodwin's cannabis practice.

Side preference. He works both sides — Goodwin's bio states his patent practice "comprises patent cases on behalf of both plaintiffs and defendants" — but the tracked record skews defense-side (2 defendant appearances, 1 plaintiff). The plaintiff-side matter is Regeneron, a long-standing Goodwin client asserting biologics patents. The defendant-side matters are NPE/inventor assertions against operating companies: individual inventor Peter Henrik Pedersen sued Mailgun and J2 Global (a Ziff Davis entity) in W.D. Tex. over a single email-management patent (U.S. 6,965,920). Schuman is also listed as approved panel counsel for RPX, the defensive patent-risk aggregator, which is consistent with a predominantly defense-oriented practice.

Firm context and notable results. Schuman has been at Goodwin since 2014; before that he was a partner at Morgan, Lewis & Bockius in San Francisco, where he led that firm's SF/Palo Alto litigation practice and was deputy leader of its IP practice. He began his career as a law clerk to Justice Alan B. Handler of the New Jersey Supreme Court. Reported results include: co-lead counsel for Otto Trucking in Waymo v. Uber, where Goodwin won summary judgment for Otto Trucking; defense of Cisco in a Delaware patent/trade secret/fraud case in which a plaintiff seeking over $500 million recovered roughly $33,000; a $40 million judgment for the former Nangate shareholders against Silvaco; participation in the team that obtained a $130 million judgment for ActiveVideo; and the Unwired Planet v. Google matter, which produced a Federal Circuit opinion on the scope of Covered Business Method review. In the tracked Regeneron matter, the district court's preliminary injunction against Samsung Bioepis was affirmed by the Federal Circuit in January 2025, and the parties settled in February 2026 with a January 2027 U.S. launch date for Samsung's aflibercept biosimilar. The tracked Pedersen matters resolved without a merits trial: J2 Global was dismissed in August 2022, and Mailgun was dismissed with prejudice under a Rule 41 stipulation referencing a settlement, with each side bearing its own fees.

PTAB / IPR. He reports having handled approximately 30 IPR and CBM proceedings, and PTAB filings confirm him as counsel on proceedings including Microchip Technology IPR2021-01421 (pro hac vice) and a 2022 petition concerning TQ Delta's '048 patent. Files in the Pedersen campaign show third-party IPRs against the '920 patent (Unified Patents, Oracle, Adobe) rather than Schuman's own petitions.

Bar / education. J.D., Harvard Law School (1996, cum laude); B.A., University of Michigan (1993, Phi Beta Kappa); admitted in California (1997). Note: some details above come from firm/directory bios rather than primary court records, and Goodwin's bios and the tracked case list occasionally differ on whether a given matter is characterized as plaintiff- or defense-side.