Kurt Pankratz

Attorney Summary: Kurt Pankratz
Generated: 2026-05-09

Kurt Pankratz is a first-chair trial lawyer and a partner at Baker Botts, where he serves as Chair of the Dallas Intellectual Property department. His practice focuses on high-stakes patent and trade secret litigation, particularly in complex technology sectors. His engineering background in high-security networks and signals intelligence informs his work on sophisticated tech cases. The tracked cases show a specific concentration in the digital video and streaming media industry, representing DISH Technologies in a series of enforcement actions related to adaptive bitrate streaming technology.

The authoritative case list indicates a strong plaintiff-side practice, with Pankratz appearing for the plaintiff in seven of the eight tracked matters. His work is centered on representing operating company DISH Technologies and its affiliates in asserting its patent portfolio against competitors in the streaming media space, including fuboTV, Videon Labs, and Aylo Freesites Ltd. This litigation campaign has involved asserting patents covering foundational streaming technology.

Pankratz has spent his career at Baker Botts. His notable results include securing a directed verdict for a media and communications company that eliminated billions of dollars in potential exposure in a patent infringement suit and obtaining a nearly $300 million verdict for a patent owner. For his client DISH, Baker Botts attorneys secured a judgment as a matter of law that vacated a $469 million jury verdict in a case involving commercial-skipping features. Pankratz also has experience in post-grant proceedings and appeals; he is listed as a contact for his firm's Federal Circuit practice and speaks on trends in PTAB and inter partes review (IPR) procedures.

He earned his B.S. in computer engineering from Texas A&M University and his J.D., with honors, from The University of Texas School of Law. He is admitted to the State Bar of Texas and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.