Ethan Haller Townsend

I'll research this attorney before drafting the summary.

Practice focus. Ethan H. Townsend is a Wilmington, Delaware litigation attorney at McDermott Will & Emery (the firm renamed itself McDermott Will & Schulte LLP effective Aug. 1, 2025, per a PTAB mandatory-notices filing). His firm bio describes a Delaware-centered complex commercial, corporate and securities practice — Court of Chancery, the Delaware Supreme Court, the Superior Court's Complex Commercial Litigation Division, and the District of Delaware — with IP litigation in D. Del. as one component. The patent work visible in the public record is concentrated in pharmaceutical Hatch-Waxman/ANDA matters: the Neurelis, Inc. suits over Valtoco (intranasal diazepam) against Lupin and Amneal, plus related Neurelis actions against Padagis and Strides; Taiho Pharmaceutical v. Accord Healthcare; and Alnylam Pharmaceuticals v. Pfizer/BioNTech over lipid-nanoparticle/mRNA delivery patents. Earlier in his career (DLA Piper) his patent docket included mechanical/consumer-goods and software cases, e.g., Mastercool v. Irwin Industrial Tool, and, at McDermott, DataCore Software v. Scale Computing (storage-virtualization software).

Side preference. In the tracked dataset both appearances (2 of 2) are plaintiff-side and in a Delaware local-counsel role alongside out-of-state McDermott lead teams. The public dockets are consistent — he appears for brand life-sciences patent owners (Neurelis, Alnylam, Taiho) and for a software plaintiff in DataCore. This is an operating-company/branded-pharma plaintiff profile, not an NPE/PAE practice. His wider commercial docket is mixed and includes defense-side work (e.g., representing the Dutchie founders in a Delaware Chancery control dispute). Note the tracked sample of two is narrow; Law360's docket index lists roughly 84 Delaware matters for him, the large majority non-patent.

Notable matters and outcomes. Alnylam is the highest-profile patent matter: Reuters reported (Sept. 18, 2025) that Moderna settled the related Alnylam suits, with Townsend named among Alnylam's McDermott counsel; the Pfizer/BioNTech arm proceeded in D. Del. (C.A. No. 22-336). He entered his appearance for the Taiho plaintiffs in Taiho v. Accord Healthcare (D. Del. 1:19-cv-02321) in December 2024. In the Neurelis Valtoco ANDA litigation he serves as Delaware counsel; Neurelis's 2025 IPR briefing in that family references a February 2026 district-court trial setting, but I did not verify a final judgment or settlement. His firm bio also claims verdicts of infringement and validity for a branded anti-psychotic drug and a branded anti-epilepsy drug, expressly flagged as matters handled before joining McDermott and without case names, so those are unverified here.

PTAB/IPR and credentials. I found no public record of Townsend as counsel of record in an IPR or PGR; the IPRs challenging Neurelis's Valtoco patents (Padagis US v. Neurelis, IPR2025-00465/466 and related) list other McDermott attorneys as counsel. Education and admissions, per his firm bio and directory profiles: Villanova University School of Law, JD 2011 (summa cum laude, valedictorian, Order of the Coif); University of Delaware, BChE 2005; admitted in Delaware (2012); admitted to the US Supreme Court, the Third and Sixth Circuits, and the District of Delaware; prior clerkships with the Third Circuit and the district courts for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania and the District of Delaware. Directory listings differ on his title — Law.com has referred to him as a partner, while some aggregator listings still show associate.

Sources: McDermott Will & Emery attorney bio; Chambers USA (Chancery – Delaware, Band 4); Law360 attorney docket index; Reuters (Sept. 18, 2025); D. Del. and PTAB filings via CourtListener, Docket Alarm and USPTO PTACTS; Super Lawyers/FindLaw directory entries.