Christopher J. Sorenson

I'll research this attorney before drafting.

Let me dig into specific cases and outcomes.

Christopher J. Sorenson — Merchant & Gould (Minneapolis)

Focus areas. Sorenson's practice is centered on pharmaceutical patent litigation under the Hatch-Waxman Act, particularly ANDA/Paragraph IV cases, and he is a former chair of Merchant & Gould's life sciences litigation practice group. His firm bio describes him as a trial attorney who has tried cases to verdict in federal and state courts and in contested arbitrations, with additional experience in a long list of non-pharma technologies: internet method patents, precision fluid pumps, injection-molded polycarbonate sunglass lenses, electronic fuel-injected two-stroke engines, air restriction indicators, load-weighing software for surface mining equipment, insulated concrete forms, and dog toys. Reported cases confirm food-processing and consumer-product patent work as well as pharma.

Side preference. The tracked dataset here shows only a single appearance, on the plaintiff side as lead counsel, and is too thin to support any inference on its own. Public dockets and the firm's own description point to a practice that runs both ways, but with a clear commercial center of gravity: Sorenson's stated current focus is representing the generic drug industry — i.e., defending ANDA filers against brand-company infringement suits — which is defendant-side work in Hatch-Waxman terms. His plaintiff-side matters are operating companies enforcing their own patents (e.g., CMP Development, Amazin' Raisins, Kapak, ConAgra/Ardent Mills), not NPE/PAE assertion campaigns. I found no indication he does patent-prosecution or licensing-assertion work for non-practicing entities.

Firm context and notable matters. Sorenson has been at Merchant & Gould throughout his patent litigation career, based in Minneapolis; he began litigating patent cases around 2001 and previously practiced in fire litigation, product liability, construction, and insurance coverage. Verifiable matters include: CMP Development, LLC v. Amneal Pharmaceuticals LLC (D. Del. 1:21-cv-00549), a Hatch-Waxman case over CMP's CaroSpir® patents in which he was counsel for plaintiff CMP; after a two-day bench trial in January 2023, the court ruled for Amneal, finding no infringement on any asserted claim. He represented Watson Laboratories in an ANDA matter in the District of Nevada (3:11-cv-00481), which produced a 2014 injunction against Watson under § 271(e)(4) and a cross-appeal to the Federal Circuit. Earlier work includes Amazin' Raisins International v. Ocean Spray Cranberries (D. Mass. 2004) for the patent holder and ConAgra Foods v. Archer-Daniels-Midland (D. Kan.) for the patent owner. Law360's attorney page lists roughly two dozen matters for him, including In re Pharmascience Inc. (Minn. 2024), Digital Control Inc. v. Underground Magnetics (S.D. Iowa 2022), and HydraAssist LLC v. RK Partnership (D.S.D. 2022); that count is much larger than the single tracked appearance in the dataset provided, and I could not verify outcomes for most of those docket entries.

PTAB/IPR experience and bar/education. He appears in PTAB proceedings, but as backup counsel admitted pro hac vice rather than as lead — consistent with his not being a registered patent practitioner. Examples: Nuevolution A/S v. Chemgene Holding APS, IPR2017-01598/-01599/-01603 (petitioner, DNA-encoded chemical synthesis, U.S. Patent 8,951,728); Archer-Daniels-Midland v. ConAgra Foods/Ardent Mills, IPR2014-00592 (patent owner); and MSN Laboratories v. Bausch Health Ireland, IPR2023-00016 (petitioner, U.S. Patent 7,041,786). He is admitted to practice in Minnesota (1996), before the District of Minnesota and several other federal district courts, and before the First, Seventh, Eighth, and Federal Circuits; he earned his J.D. from William Mitchell College of Law in 1996 and is recognized in The Best Lawyers in America for Litigation–Patent and Litigation–Intellectual Property (since 2013).

Note on sourcing: no court-verified verdict wins or Federal Circuit decisions on the merits in his favor surfaced in this search, and the "one appearance" figure in the case list conflicts with the larger dockets indexed by Law360 — treat the case-count data with caution.