Dirk D. Thomas

Dirk D. Thomas is a highly experienced patent litigation attorney with a career spanning over three decades, focusing primarily on patent enforcement for plaintiffs. He has a strong background in mechanical engineering, which underpins his work across various technology sectors. His practice areas have included medical devices, computer hardware and software, telecommunications, digital rights management, and more recently, retail marketing technologies and AI-driven solutions.

Throughout his career, Mr. Thomas has demonstrated a consistent plaintiff-side preference, particularly in contingent and hybrid fee patent enforcement matters for small companies and independent inventors. His tracked case history shows two appearances as Lead Counsel on the plaintiff side, with no defendant-side representations, aligning with his stated focus on patent enforcement.

Mr. Thomas began his legal career at Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett and Dunner, where he became an equity partner. In 1999, he joined Robins, Kaplan, Miller, and Ciresi, establishing and leading their Intellectual Property practice in Washington D.C. He later served as a managing partner at McKool Smith's Washington D.C. office starting in 2009. Currently, he operates his independent practice under "The Thomas Law Firm" and "Dirk D. Thomas," focusing on offering services unencumbered by large firm overhead.

His notable achievements include first-chairing multiple patent jury trials and arbitrations, yielding over $300 million in awards and settlements for his clients. He secured a significant preliminary injunction for Medtronic Sofamor Danek in a spinal implant device case, noted as a rare instance for a medical device subject to FDA protocols at the time, and achieved a mid-eight-figure settlement for Tulip BV against Dell Computer Corporation after a patent infringement trial. In a recent tracked case, Alpha Modus, Corp. v. Wakefern Food Corp., Alpha Modus reached a settlement with Shelf Nine, including a strategic partnership and perpetual license for Alpha Modus's AI-driven retail marketing technology. Mr. Thomas is also a Registered Patent Attorney with experience defending clients' patents against Inter Partes Review (IPR) challenges at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

Mr. Thomas earned his B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Maryland in 1982 and his J.D. from George Washington University Law School in 1986, the same year he was admitted to legal practice. He is admitted to practice in the District of Columbia, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, and the U.S. Supreme Court, among other courts.