Douglas Kline

I'll research this attorney's background before drafting.

Let me verify the tracked cases and look for notable outcomes.

Let me check the IPR outcomes and look for notable verdicts.

Douglas J. Kline — Goodwin Procter (Boston) — patent litigation profile

Focus areas. Kline's practice is centered on high-stakes patent and IP litigation for technology and life-science clients. Chambers USA describes him as having "considerable expertise in the telecommunications and life sciences sectors," and his PTO practitioner record shows recurring portfolio work for clients in mass spectrometry/life-science instrumentation (Micromass, Deciphera, NeuroDerm), cybersecurity (BitSight/Black Kite), software and computer-generated speech/AI (VoiceBox patents, MZ IP Holdings), and mechanical/consumer products. He is a registered patent attorney (Reg. No. 35,574) with an engineering degree, so the docket spans both electrical/software and electro-mechanical subject matter, with secondary exposure to pharmaceutical/life-science disputes.

Side preference. The tracked data is evenly split — one plaintiff-side and one defendant-side appearance — and that accurately reflects a two-sided practice anchored in defending operating companies. His best-documented defendant-side role is Nike, Inc. v. New Balance Athletics, Inc. (D. Mass.), where he was lead counsel for New Balance. On the other side, he has acted as petitioner counsel for Samsung in PTAB challenges, and he has separately represented patent owners/NPEs in validity proceedings (for example, Personalized Media Communications in IPRs against Apple), so he is not a one-direction practitioner. Category counts are too small to establish a systematic preference; the larger pattern in searchable records is defense-side representation of product companies plus selective patent-owner work.

Firm context and tracked matters. He is a senior partner in Goodwin Procter's IP Litigation practice in Boston, which he previously chaired, and has been at Goodwin since 2005. Before that he was a partner at Testa, Hurwitz & Thibeault in Boston, where he chaired both the Patent/IP practice and the IP litigation group. In Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. v. VB Assets, LLC (PTAB, recorded role "of counsel"), Goodwin represented Samsung as petitioner in six parallel IPRs (IPR2025-00866 through -00871) against VoiceBox/VB Assets voice-assistant patents, running alongside EDTX Case No. 2:24-cv-00828; on September 12, 2025 the Acting Director denied institution of four of the petitions (-866, -867, -868, -869) on discretionary grounds, weighing settled expectations and prior adjudications. In Nike v. New Balance, New Balance defeated Nike's motion to dismiss in August 2024 on the "flat knit" claim-construction issue, then obtained a stay pending IPR in June 2025; the case remained stayed pending Nike's Federal Circuit appeal of the PTAB's decision holding the '749 patent unpatentable. Kline appeared in that matter from July 2024.

PTAB/IPR experience. Post-grant work is a substantial part of his practice rather than occasional. He has been lead counsel in IPRs on both petitioner and patent-owner sides (e.g., Esselte entities as petitioners in IPR2015-00771; Personalized Media Communications as patent owner in IPR2016-00754; NormShield/Black Kite as patent owner in IPR2024-01392), has argued before the PTAB, and authored Goodwin's 2013 practitioner study on AIA post-grant proceedings. His firm bio also cites frequent Federal Circuit argument and briefing at the Supreme Court; Goodwin states he has won multimillion-dollar willful-infringement verdicts and defeated nine-figure claims, though specific case names and results were not verifiable in searchable sources and should be treated as firm-supplied.

Bar/education. JD, Suffolk University Law School, 1990 (magna cum laude); BS, Mechanical Engineering, Tufts University, 1984. Admitted in Massachusetts and before the USPTO; also admitted to the Federal Circuit, First Circuit, U.S. Supreme Court, D. Mass., E.D. Tex., and W.D. Wis.

Note on sourcing: the professional background above comes from Goodwin's attorney page, Chambers USA, IAM/Legal 500, and docket records; the "of counsel" versus "senior partner" designations differ between the tracked docket role and Goodwin's own bio, and I have not reconciled them.