Leslie Payne

Specialty / focus. Leslie ("Les") Payne is a Houston-based trial and appellate patent litigator with more than three decades of experience across electrical, computer, software, mechanical, and chemical technologies. His caseload skews toward wireless and mobile standards — Wi-Fi, LTE/4G/5G cellular, transceivers, and smartphone/tablet products — with additional matters involving financial-services software, autonomous-vehicle technology, and oil-and-gas downhole equipment (Chambers USA; IAM Patent 1000; Best Lawyers). He holds a B.S. in electrical engineering, and IAM describes him as particularly strong on the technical side of complex cases.

Side preference. Payne works both sides, and the tracked docket reflects that balance: one plaintiff-side appearance (VB Assets, LLC v. General Motors Holdings LLC et al., lead counsel) and one defendant-side appearance (Capital One v. Wapp Tech Corp., lead counsel). In practice, however, he is best known as an enforcement-side lead for patent monetizers — Wapp Tech, WiLAN, Red Rock Analytics, Dataquill, Two-Way Media, CSIRO, and Fractus — while also defending operating companies such as Weatherford and Halliburton. IAM notes he "leads a number of the firm's most significant enforcement matters," and his firm bio reports plaintiff recoveries exceeding $1 billion alongside multiple no-payment defense dismissals.

Firm context & notable cases. Payne is a co-founder and partner of Heim, Payne & Chorush LLP, the Houston specialist IP litigation boutique he helped build around 2006; sources do not clearly identify his pre-HPC firm, so that history is unverified. Reported highlights include a $31.5 million jury verdict for Dataquill against ZTE in Marshall, Texas (2015); final judgment for Red Rock Analytics against Samsung after defeating four IPR petitions (2019); a favorable Markman ruling on 30+ issues and pre-trial resolution for WiLAN against LG (2020); and, on the defense side, invalidating all asserted claims against Weatherford in five IPRs affirmed by the Federal Circuit, ending the Rapid Completions suit (2020). He is also credited with a direct role in Commil USA v. Cisco Systems at the U.S. Supreme Court. He currently represents Wapp Tech in its 2025 E.D. Tex. suit against Apple and Capital One entities.

PTAB / IPR experience. Payne has an active IPR practice on both sides of the PTAB — defending patent validity for owners and invalidating patents for accused infringers — and Chambers specifically flags his "significant experience representing clients before the PTAB in patent validity claims."

Bar / education. B.S. in electrical engineering, University of Tennessee (magna cum laude, 1989); J.D., Vanderbilt University Law School (1992); licensed in Texas since 1992 and admitted to the USPTO, the Federal Circuit, the Fifth Circuit, and the U.S. Supreme Court (Best Lawyers; Super Lawyers).