Frank Porcelli

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

Frank Porcelli — patent litigation practice summary

Focus areas. Frank P. Porcelli is a Senior Principal at Fish & Richardson, working out of the firm's Boston and Delaware offices, whose practice centers on patent and trade secret litigation and, above all, Federal Circuit appellate work — he has co-chaired Fish's Appellate Group since 1996 (firm bio; Avvo profile summarizing the same bio). Fish lists patent litigation, appellate, Hatch-Waxman, ITC litigation, and trade secret litigation among his areas, with chemicals, life sciences, and medical devices as his industry focus; he holds an M.S. in chemistry from Northeastern (1981) in addition to his law degree. The technology mix in his reported matters bears that out — orthopedic casting materials, vascular grafts and needle guards, wound-healing biologics, marine seismic equipment — and the tracked case here is automotive navigation/multimedia software, i.e., computer-implemented vehicle systems rather than a standards-based (Wi-Fi/FRAND) practice.

Side preference. The tracked docket contains a single appearance, on the defendant side, as of counsel for Honda — so the structured data show no plaintiff-side work. That one-case sample should not be read as a defense-only practice. Public sources show him acting for patentees as well: he was identified as lead trial counsel for Cytomedix in its 2004 contingent-fee patent enforcement campaign (company press release), and his firm bio credits him with representing 3M as plaintiff in its orthopedics patent and trade secret case. The reasonable read is that he works both sides, with a strong tilt toward defending judgments and appeals.

Firm context and notable matters. Fish & Richardson throughout — no prior firm appears in the sources reviewed. His reported appellate results include 3M v. Johnson & Johnson Orthopedics (Fed. Cir. 1992), a $129M judgment affirmed and for 25 years the largest district-court patent award upheld by the Federal Circuit; Johnson & Johnston Assocs. v. R.E. Service Co. (Fed. Cir. 2002, en banc), a 12–1 reversal establishing the doctrine of dedication; Bard Peripheral Vascular v. W.L. Gore (Fed. Cir. 2012, en banc), vacating a $206M willfulness penalty; Becton, Dickinson v. Tyco Healthcare (Fed. Cir. 2010), outright reversal of a $58M jury verdict; and Evans v. General Motors (Conn. 2006), a trade secret appeal establishing a jury-trial right under the UTSA. On the tracked case, American Calcar, Inc. v. American Honda Motor Co., S.D. Cal. No. 06-cv-2433 (Fed. Cir. 651 F.3d 1318 (2011); 768 F.3d 1185 (2014)), Honda ultimately prevailed — the asserted Calcar patents were held unenforceable for inequitable conduct and one patent invalid as anticipated; Porcelli is listed as of counsel on Honda's briefs in the 2011 appeal. He also appears on the Federal Circuit brief for ION Geophysical in the WesternGeco appeal (Nos. 2013-1527 et al.).

PTAB / IPR and credentials. No evidence found that he appears regularly in IPR/PGR proceedings — his public profile and tracked appearance are district-court and appellate, not post-grant, and I would not attribute PTAB practice to him without confirmation. Bar and education, as listed in Martindale and MoreLaw: admitted in Massachusetts (1971) and Delaware (1972), registered before the USPTO; J.D., Harvard Law School (1971); A.B. magna cum laude, Boston College (1968); M.S. Chemistry, Northeastern (1981). Note for disambiguation: the immunologist Steven A. Porcelli, a named inventor on CD1-antigen patents, is a different person.