Bridget A. Smith

Bridget A. Smith — patent litigation practice summary

Focus areas and PTAB experience. Smith is a registered patent attorney whose practice centers on post-grant proceedings before the PTAB — inter partes review, post-grant review, and covered business method review — together with related district court litigation and Federal Circuit appeals. Public firm and conference bios describe her technical work in semiconductors, computer hardware and software, business methods, and medical devices, with more recent emphasis on blockchain/smart contracts; her engineering background is in chemical engineering and semiconductor process work. By her own and firm accounts she has handled well over 150 AIA trials, and she served as co-chair of Knobbe Martens' Patent Office Trials Practice Group. She was twice named a Top 50 Woman in PTAB Trials by the PTAB Bar Association. This PTAB focus is consistent with the tracked case list, where both appearances are IPR-side backup counsel roles.

Side preference. The tracked data is one-sided: 0 plaintiff-side and 2 defendant-side appearances, both as backup counsel for patent owner Intellectual Ventures II LLC — one in the IBM IPRs concerning IV's digital-rights/access-control patents (e.g., the '409 patent) and one in the Compass Bank IPRs (the '574 and '409 patents). In those proceedings her client was the patent owner resisting institution and invalidity challenges brought by IBM and a bank group. Public bios state that across her career she has represented both petitioners and patent owners, so the tracked record reflects the patent-owner-defensive subset of a broader two-sided PTAB practice rather than a strict side preference.

Firm context. The two tracked appearances are attributable to her tenure at Knobbe, Martens, Olson & Bear, LLP (Irvine, CA), where she began her career and later became a partner and co-chair of the firm's Patent Office Trials practice group. Public sources indicate she left Knobbe in 2019 to join the PTAB boutique Lowenstein & Weatherwax LLP as its third partner, and that she moved in-house in January 2022 to Relativity Space, an aerospace/rocket-manufacturing company, as its first in-house IP lawyer (Assistant General Counsel and Head of IP; a 2026 World IP Review listing identifies her as Senior Director & Assistant General Counsel–IP). The case list does not reflect these later roles; they are sourced to firm announcements, AIPLA/The Sedona Conference bios, and industry directories.

Notable matters, verification, and credentials. The two tracked IPRs are the most directly documented matters: in the Compass Bank IPRs, the PTAB ultimately held challenged claims of the '574 and '409 patents unpatentable, and the Federal Circuit affirmed (nonprecedential) in December 2016 — a loss for her client IV, with Knobbe's Brenton Babcock arguing on appeal. Beyond the tracked cases, Lowenstein & Weatherwax credits her with a team win in Ayla, LLC at the Ninth Circuit, described by the firm as the first published decision finding nationwide personal jurisdiction under Fed. R. Civ. P. 4(k)(2); bios also state that her amicus work for an inventors' group was cited in United States v. Arthrex. I could not independently verify case-level details of the Ayla ruling or the Arthrex amicus from primary sources in this review, so those should be treated as firm/bio-sourced. Credentials: J.D., cum laude, Arizona State University (Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law); M.S. and B.S.E., magna cum laude, Chemical Engineering, Case Western Reserve University; USPTO Reg. No. 63,574. Specific state bar admissions were not reliably sourced and are omitted.

Caveat on disambiguation: the identification of the Knobbe litigator (USPTO Reg. No. 63,574) with the Lowenstein & Weatherwax partner and Relativity Space in-house counsel rests on the matching registration number, employer history, and education in those profiles; state-bar admission records were not checked.