Ellisen Shelton Turner

I'll research this attorney's background and verify the tracked cases.

Now let me verify the tracked cases and notable outcomes.

Ellisen Shelton Turner — Patent Litigation Practice Summary

Focus areas. Turner is a Kirkland & Ellis partner in the firm's Intellectual Property Practice Group (Los Angeles office) and serves as lead trial counsel on patent, trade secret, and IP-strategy matters. His practice description emphasizes media and entertainment technology, software, telecom, semiconductors, biotechnology, and life sciences, supported by a technical background in computer engineering, computer science, and biomedical engineering (he worked as a software engineer at Hewlett-Packard, IBM's Silicon Valley Laboratory, and AlliedSignal/Honeywell before law school). He also handles standards-essential-patent (SEP) negotiation and enforcement, IP licensing, and IP diligence/transactions. The tracked docket is consistent with that mix: continuous glucose monitoring devices (Abbott/DexCom), machine-learning property-risk software (the Aon Re/Zesty.AI dispute), and defensive-aggregator patent challenges (Unified Patents).

Side preference. Turner works both sides of the "v." Firm and Chambers profiles describe him as representing both plaintiffs and defendants in high-stakes patent litigation, and that is reflected in the tracked appearances (two plaintiff-side, one defendant-side, including one pro hac vice appearance). His clients are operating companies and technology/life-sciences patent owners rather than NPE/PAE monetization plaintiffs; public materials describe defense of high-value matters alongside offensive enforcement campaigns.

Firm context and credentials. Current firm: Kirkland & Ellis (Los Angeles), where he is the firm's IP practice. He is the former managing partner of Irell & Manella, where he spent a substantial early-career portion of his patent litigation practice. California State Bar No. 224842 (admitted May 2003); J.D. cum laude, University of Michigan Law School; B.S. in Computer Engineering and Computer Science magna cum laude, University of Southern California. He is Chambers-ranked (Intellectual Property: Patent Litigation – California, Band 2) and listed in Legal 500 for patent litigation and patent licensing.

Notable matters. Abbott Diabetes Care Inc. v. DexCom, Inc. is his most prominent tracked case: he appeared for Abbott in the Delaware litigation and on appeal in DexCom, Inc. v. Abbott Diabetes Care, Inc., No. 2023-1795 (Fed. Cir. Jan. 3, 2024), where the Federal Circuit affirmed denial of DexCom's preliminary injunction that sought to block Abbott's IPRs under a settlement agreement's forum-selection clause. In the related Delaware proceedings, a jury found DexCom breached the agreement's dispute-resolution covenant by filing a counterclaim, and the court granted Abbott declaratory relief on that point while denying further remedies. Web sources also note Turner has represented Gilead Sciences and (earlier, at Irell) Activision Blizzard in patent matters, though I could not independently verify case-specific outcomes for those representations. In the Aon Re/Zesty.AI dispute over machine-learning property-assessment patents, the tracked docket records him as plaintiff-side counsel for Zesty.AI; the related Delaware action (Aon Re, Inc. v. Zesty.ai, Inc., No. 1:25-cv-201 (D. Del.)) survived an Alice § 101 motion to dismiss in July 2025, while Zesty.AI's IPR petitions against Aon Re's patents were denied institution in November 2025. The tracked Unified Patents v. Aon Re matter lists him as pro hac vice counsel on the defendant/patent-owner side.

PTAB/IPR experience. Yes — his bio states he handles contested patent office proceedings, particularly IPRs, through all phases from pre-litigation to trial and appeal. His tracked docket includes both IPR prosecution (the Abbott petitions against DexCom's asserted patents) and IPR defense work, including director-discretionary-denial briefing.

Note: All party/side characterizations in the Aon Re and Unified Patents matters are taken from the authoritative tracked docket; public docket records for those PTAB proceedings do not clearly name Kirkland as counsel of record, so those role designations should be treated as tracker-sourced rather than independently confirmed.