James S. Blackburn

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

Interesting — the search surfaced a "James S. Blackburn" at Arnold & Porter who also lists Pedersen v. Google. Let me dig into the docket and firm history.

Attorney Summary: James S. Blackburn

Specialty / focus. Blackburn's patent work centers on software, database, and internet/web-services technologies, with a secondary concentration in consumer electronics and communications. His published practice description (patent, copyright, and trademark litigation and counseling for technology, entertainment, and media clients) and his representative matters involve Gmail/cloud services, e-reader devices, database and retrieval technology, and communications protocols, modems, graphics, and video compression. Nothing in the tracked data or in searchable practice descriptions indicates Wi-Fi/standards-essential patent work or pharmaceutical/life-sciences litigation.

Side preference. Strictly defense-side on the tracked record — 0 plaintiff appearances, 1 defendant appearance — and that is consistent with the broader public record, which shows him defending operating companies (Google, Barnes & Noble, Dell, Microsoft) against patent holders, including several NPE/PAE plaintiffs. Because his only tracked appearance is a pro hac vice admission, the tracked volume understates the length of his patent litigation career; his published matters date back to the mid-2000s.

Notable cases. The tracked matter is Peter Henrik Pedersen v. Google LLC (W.D. Tex., No. 6:21-cv-01152), in which Blackburn was admitted pro hac vice for Google by Judge Alan D. Albright in January 2022. The suit, filed November 2021 by an individual inventor, asserted U.S. Patent 6,965,920 against Google's Gmail service; a third-party docket summary lists the case as closed, but no public judgment or settlement terms were located. Other reported results, drawn from his published bio: lead counsel for Barnes & Noble in Cloud Satchel v. Barnes & Noble, winning judgment of invalidity under § 101 on a Rule 12 motion, affirmed on appeal; lead counsel for multiple defendants in the E.D. Tex. GeoTag campaign, settled; defense of Dell in Lucent v. Dell (12 patents), favorable judgment after jury trial; and defense of Microsoft in Amado v. Microsoft, where a laches defense substantially reduced the jury award.

Firm context — verification caveat. The tracked record attributes this appearance to Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan. Publicly available biography information for a James S. Blackburn instead places an IP litigation partner at Arnold & Porter in Los Angeles (formerly Kaye Scholer, which merged into Arnold & Porter in 2017), and that bio expressly lists representing Google in the W.D. Texas Gmail patent action. I could not verify whether these are the same individual, whether the firm attribution reflects co-counsel, a secondment, or a firm change, or whether one source is in error. This should be confirmed with the attorney or the firm before being relied on.

PTAB / IPR experience. No IPR, PGR, or other PTAB appearances for this attorney were located in searches; his published materials do not describe a PTAB practice. This is a negative search result, not a confirmed absence, and I would not represent him as a PTAB practitioner without further verification.

Bar / education. Admitted in California (1993); also admitted in the C.D., N.D., and S.D. Cal., E.D. Tex., the Ninth Circuit, the Federal Circuit, and the U.S. Tax Court. J.D., UC Berkeley School of Law (Boalt Hall), 1993, Order of the Coif; A.B., Political Science, UC Berkeley, 1990. Recognition includes Legal 500 US "Recommended Lawyer" (IP: Copyright) and the Los Angeles Daily Journal's "50 Leading IP Litigators in California" (2008).