Jonathan S. Franklin

Specialty / focus. Jonathan S. Franklin is a Washington, DC–based appellate litigator and the Head of Appellate, United States, at Norton Rose Fulbright. His patent work is concentrated on Federal Circuit and Supreme Court patent appeals, including IPR appeals, with tracked matters touching wireless/telecommunications standards (the Massively Broadband Wi-Fi disputes), RFID and sensor-based package-tracking technology (the FedEx/Qualcomm IPRs), and software. His firm bio notes a broader appellate practice (constitutional, administrative, sovereign immunity) alongside "extensive experience litigating patent and other intellectual property appeals," and Patexia's CAFC Intelligence Report has ranked him among the top 1% of CAFC attorneys representing appellees (2025) and among its 100 most active CAFC attorneys (2023).

Side preference / firm context. The tracked case list shows a near-even split (3 plaintiff-side, 2 defendant-side), but his web-verifiable patent work is predominantly defending large operating companies — most prominently Qualcomm — as appellee in Federal Circuit appeals and IPR appeals. He is a partner at Norton Rose Fulbright (successor to Fulbright & Jaworski, where he practiced pre-merger per archived firm pages); the tracked list also attributes one matter to Vinson & Elkins, an affiliation I could not independently verify. Tracked roles range from counsel to lead counsel, including one "of counsel" appearance.

Notable cases / outcomes. In Federal Express Corp. v. Qualcomm Inc., No. 2024-1237 (Fed. Cir., decided Apr. 29, 2026), Franklin appeared as counsel for appellee Qualcomm; the court affirmed the Board's claim constructions and obviousness findings on the '231 patent, vacating and remanding only where the Board failed to address FedEx's prior-art distinction argument — a partial win for his client. He was also part of the Norton Rose Fulbright team defending Qualcomm's IPRs against FedEx (IPR2022-00584 through -00587, covering the '033, '797, and '231 patents), and is identified as counsel to Qualcomm in its unanimous Ninth Circuit victory in FTC v. Qualcomm (FRAND/"no license, no chips") and in oppositions to Apple's certiorari petitions on patent-license standing (Apple Inc. v. Qualcomm, Nos. 21-746, 21-1327; cert denied).

PTAB/IPR / credentials. Franklin regularly appears in IPR-related work — including the tracked IPR2022-00861 — though his role skews to appellate briefing and argument of IPR decisions rather than high-volume first-chair PTAB practice. He holds a J.D. from Yale Law School (1990) and an A.B. from Harvard College (1986), is admitted in DC (1991) and Pennsylvania (1990), and is barred before the US Supreme Court, the Federal Circuit, and most federal courts of appeals (per firm bio and Martindale).