Jeanne Heffernan

Jeanne ("Jeannie") Heffernan — Patent Litigation Practice Summary

Specialty and side preference. Heffernan is a first-chair trial lawyer and partner at Kirkland & Ellis, where she heads the firm's Texas IP litigation group out of Austin; she previously spent roughly 20 years in Kirkland's New York office before launching the Texas practice. Her patent work is concentrated in computer networking, telecommunications, cryptography, semiconductors, and software/hardware, with medical devices also cited in firm profiles. She works almost exclusively on the defense side: all four tracked appearances (Microsoft, Samsung, Capital One, and one unidentified matter) are for accused infringers, and she is known for defense verdicts in the Eastern and Western Districts of Texas. Firm materials describe more than a dozen patent trials won in district court and at the ITC, with Federal Circuit affirmances.

Notable cases and outcomes. In the tracked matters, Heffernan represented Microsoft in VirtaMove Corp. v. Microsoft Corp. (W.D. Tex., filed May 2025), a software/operating-system case in which the parallel IPR Microsoft filed (Microsoft v. VirtaMove, IPR2025-00853) terminated pre-institution upon settlement in September 2025. She is lead counsel for Capital One (with Apple and Frost Bank) in Wapp Tech Ltd. Partnership v. Apple Inc. et al. (E.D. Tex., 4:25-cv-00230), an NPE suit over mobile-application development/emulation patents that was at claim construction as of May 2026, with a related Capital One IPR (IPR2025-01325). She also leads the Samsung defense in XIFI Networks R&D, Inc. v. Samsung Electronics (tracked, outcome not verified). Earlier verified results include a defense verdict for Charter Communications in Marshall, Texas against Hybrid Patents' $176 million cable-modem claim (2007, as an associate on the trial team) and a reported defense win for Epic Games in a Waco (W.D. Tex.) patent case alongside Kirkland's David Dyer.

PTAB/IPR experience and credentials. PTAB work is a secondary, supporting element of her practice rather than her core focus: she has appeared pro hac vice in PTAB proceedings (e.g., PGR2019-00061 for RetailMeNot), and her Texas cases frequently run parallel to IPRs. Heffernan holds a J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School (2002), a B.A. from Notre Dame, and is Texas-bar licensed (2022) after a New York-based career; she is ranked by Chambers USA (Band 4, IP) and recognized by IAM Patent 1000 and The Legal 500. No prior-firm history outside Kirkland was identified in available sources.