James Zak

I'll research this attorney before drafting.

Let me gather more detail on his background, prior firms, and bar admissions.

Let me check for prior firm history and any Federal Circuit rulings in the Proxense campaign.

James Zak — patent litigation practice summary

James Zak is a partner at Hecht Partners LLP in New York and co-chair of the firm's PTAB practice group. His tracked litigation footprint is narrow (a single appearance, on the plaintiff side), but public PTAB and court records show his practice is concentrated in patent-owner-side assertion work for Proxense, LLC, a biometric-authentication patent holder. Technology areas in that campaign include biometric data keys and authentication, trusted execution environments/secure elements, tokenized mobile payments (Samsung Pay), and device-to-device wireless authentication. His firm biography describes broader technical experience spanning chemistry and synthesis, materials science, protein sequence/structural biology, mechanical devices, and software, with undergraduate research in AI and a pharmacology course of graduate study.

Side preference. On the tracked data he is plaintiff/patent-owner side (1 of 1 appearance). Consistent with that, his PTAB docket role is consistently as counsel for patent owner Proxense, not as petitioner. His firm bio states that before joining Hecht Partners he represented Fortune 500 companies in computers/AI, pharmaceuticals, medical devices, chemistry, and materials science, indicating some prior defense/operating-company-side experience — though the prior firm(s) are not identified in the sourcing available to me.

Firm context. Current firm: Hecht Partners LLP (New York). No prior firms are named in the sources located; the firm bio only refers generically to earlier representation of Fortune 500 clients. He should not be confused with a "James Zak" who appears on Justia as a named patent inventor, which appears to be a different individual.

Notable matters / outcomes. The tracked case, Proxense, LLC v. Samsung Electronics (W.D. Tex., No. 6:21-cv-00210, before Judge Alan Albright), involved three biometric authentication patents asserted against Samsung Pay and settled on the eve of trial in early 2023; the on-the-record quote about the result came from firm partner David L. Hecht, not Zak. A parallel Proxense v. Google action was dismissed with prejudice in January 2025 (widely read as a license). Reports on the Proxense campaign also reference additional defendants (Apple, Microsoft, Intel, LG), including a Federal Circuit ruling favoring Proxense on the Microsoft venue dispute, though I could not verify Zak's individual role in those specific filings.

PTAB / IPR experience. Substantial and documented. He served as backup counsel for Proxense in Samsung Electronics America v. Proxense (IPR2021-01438, -01439, -01447) and appears in the Microsoft v. Proxense proceedings, including IPR2024-00573, where he presented oral argument for the patent owner in May 2025. His practice centers on claim construction and means-plus-function disputes, matching his co-chair role in the firm's PTAB group.

Bar / education. Registered patent attorney (USPTO Reg. No. 60,190); admitted in Minnesota; J.D. cum laude, University of Minnesota Law School; B.S. Biochemistry and B.S. Neuroscience, University of Minnesota.