John M. Baird

John M. Baird is a seasoned patent litigator and Partner at Duane Morris LLP, where he focuses on highly technical disputes for major technology clients. With an electrical engineering background, his practice emphasizes U.S. district court litigation, inter partes reviews (IPRs), and ex parte reexaminations (EPRs) before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). He specializes in the electrical and mechanical arts, particularly involving telecommunication, computer, and networking technologies, including WiFi, 5G cellular technology, cloud computing, and cybersecurity.

Mr. Baird predominantly represents defendants, drawing on two decades of experience defending major technology clients in patent disputes. In the tracked case K.Mizra LLC v. Ciena Corporation, he represented the defendant Ciena, where the court granted a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim, and the case was administratively closed pending USPTO review. In Kangxi Communication Technologies (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. v. Skyworks Solutions Inc., Mr. Baird represented Kangxi as a respondent in an International Trade Commission (ITC) investigation. The complainant dismissed its case, and corresponding district court litigations, with prejudice after an evidentiary hearing led to a determination of no violation and no infringement by his clients.

His experience extends significantly to PTAB proceedings, where he is a member of Duane Morris's U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board practice group, which is noted for its success for petitioners in IPRs. He has served as lead counsel in numerous IPR and EPR proceedings, achieving a "100% success rate as lead counsel for a seasoned IPR petitioner" in challenging patent validity. Notable IPR outcomes include successfully challenging a patent for dual-factor authentication in WiFi networks in Unified Patents, LLC v. Monarch Networking Solutions LLC, where all challenged claims were found unpatentable, and securing an adverse judgment against a patent owner in Microsoft Corporation v. Edge Networking Systems, LLC concerning cloud computing technology.

Before joining Duane Morris in April 2005, Mr. Baird clerked at a boutique intellectual property firm in Sydney, Australia. He earned his B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Cornell University in 1998 and his J.D. cum laude from George Mason University School of Law in 2008. He is a registered patent attorney and admitted to practice in Virginia and Washington, D.C.