Leonard Davis

Leonard Davis — Patent Litigation Practice Summary

Specialty / focus areas. Davis is Of Counsel in the Dallas office of Fish & Richardson, where he provides strategic counseling, case evaluation, settlement strategy, and mock-trial/mock-Markman support for patent and complex commercial litigation. His tracked matter — G+ Communications, LLC v. Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. — centers on 5G/wireless standard-essential patents (SEPs) and FRAND issues, and his bench background spanned the full range of high-tech patent disputes. His undergraduate degree in mathematics (University of Texas) and his 1,700+ cases as a district judge give him particular depth in complex technology litigation, though he is not a technology-specific practitioner.

Side preference. His single tracked appearance is defense-side (0 plaintiff / 1 defendant), representing operating company Samsung against an NPE in the Eastern District of Texas. At Fish & Richardson, his firm bio states he advises both plaintiffs and defendants, but his docketed appearances reflect a defense-side focus for technology companies.

Firm context. Davis joined Fish & Richardson in May 2015 after retiring as Chief Judge of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas (2002–2015; Chief Judge 2012–2015), where he presided over more than 1,700 IP cases and roughly 250 Markman hearings. Before the bench he was Chief Justice of Texas' 12th Court of Appeals (2000–2002) and, earlier, a trial lawyer for 23 years at Potter Minton PC in Tyler. Note: he should be disambiguated from other attorneys of the same name, including his son, Bo Davis, a solo practitioner in Longview.

Notable cases / outcomes. As a judge he presided over several landmark patent cases, including i4i v. Microsoft (a $200M verdict plus $40M in enhanced damages, affirmed by the Federal Circuit and the Supreme Court's Microsoft v. i4i decision on the clear-and-convincing invalidity standard); Mirror Worlds v. Apple ($208.5M verdict later vacated on JMOL and affirmed); and VirnetX v. Apple ($368M verdict later reversed and remanded). In the tracked G+ v. Samsung matter, Samsung (with Davis on the Fish team) faced a $67.5M verdict set aside for juror confusion, a $142M retrial award in April 2024, and a subsequent PTAB decision invalidating one of the two patents at issue; Samsung's related Federal Circuit appeal (No. 24-1902) was voluntarily dismissed.

PTAB / IPR experience. No public record shows Davis appearing regularly in IPR/PGR proceedings; his practice and reputation are anchored in district-court jury trials and Markman practice in the Eastern District of Texas. The G+ matter did involve a Samsung-filed IPR that invalidated one patent, but Davis' own IPR advocacy record is not documented.

Bar / education. Admitted in Texas (and to various federal courts and the U.S. Supreme Court); J.D. cum laude, first in class, Baylor Law School (1976), Editor-in-Chief of the Baylor Law Review, with an M.S. in management science from TCU (1974) and a B.A. in mathematics from the University of Texas (1970).