Maria Doukas

I'll research this attorney before drafting.

Maria E. Doukas — Partner, Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP (Chicago) | USPTO Reg. No. 67,084

Focus areas. Doukas's practice is patent litigation plus PTAB post-grant work, with a technology mix that skews life-sciences and mechanical rather than software or standards-essential. Her Morgan Lewis bio points to pharmaceuticals and biologics, medical devices, and mechanical arts, and she came to the bar with a U.S. Patent and Trademark Office examiner background in medical devices and an M.S. in biomedical engineering. Her tracked docket reflects that breadth: inkjet printhead and semiconductor-substrate patents in the Canon/Slingshot dispute, lithium-ion battery and power-tool technology in the Milwaukee Tool litigation, and an ANDA case (Salix Pharmaceuticals v. Mylan, N.D. W. Va., 2025). The firm bio also lists Hatch-Waxman district court work, Section 337 investigations at the ITC, trade secret misappropriation, and licensing disputes, and she contributes to the firm's Blockbuster Biologics Review.

Side preference. She works both sides, and the tracked numbers are nearly even (4 plaintiff-side vs. 5 defendant-side appearances). The important qualifier is that her plaintiff-side work is for operating companies — Milwaukee Electric Tool and Canon — not for NPEs. Her defendant-side docket is largely defending operating companies against a licensing entity (Slingshot Printing) and related litigation. Across the tracked matters she is as often acting as appellate counsel (4 of 9 entries) or PTAB petitioner counsel as she is first-chair trial counsel.

Firm context. All nine tracked appearances are at Morgan Lewis, and PTAB filings show her at the firm as backup counsel on petitioner-side IPRs as early as 2015–2016, so her tenure there spans roughly a decade. She identifies only "another international law firm" as prior private practice; no earlier firm is named in the sourced materials. Earlier roles were at the USPTO (patent examiner, medical device arts), a judicial externship with Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman (N.D. Ill.), and a law-school patent infringement analysis stint at Ford Motor Co.

Notable matters and PTAB/IPR experience. Her most prominent tracked engagement is the Canon v. Slingshot Printing dispute, where she is part of the Morgan Lewis team that has now secured five Federal Circuit affirmances holding Slingshot printhead patents unpatentable as obvious — including U.S. Patent Nos. 7,152,951, 7,195,341, 7,290,864, 7,484,823, and 7,594,708, decided in a series of non-precedential rulings across 2026. She is also lead counsel for Milwaukee Electric Tool against Klein Tools in the N.D. Ill. case and the parallel ITC investigations (337-TA-1409 and 337-TA-1442), where PTAB institution was discretionarily denied over the parallel ITC proceedings. Her firm bio additionally credits her with a defense verdict for Nestlé Purina in a jury trial where the plaintiff sought $73 million on a sodium bentonite formulation patent, a Milwaukee Tool lithium-ion battery jury trial in the Eastern District of Wisconsin, ANDA work for Praxair, an ITC matter for Baxalta involving recombinant factor VIII, and a Merck KGaA arbitration against NantKwest/Brink Biologics; these are self-reported and I could not independently verify them all. On the PTAB side she appears regularly: petitioner-side IPRs (Praxair v. Mallinckrodt, IPR2015-00529/-00884; Canon's printhead IPRs), a Replimune PGR petition (IPR2023-00106), and patent-owner backup counsel roles in PGR2025-00023 (Seikagaku) and PGR2025-00080 (Milwaukee).

Bar and education. Admitted in Illinois and before the USPTO; J.D., Northwestern University School of Law (2013); B.S. and M.S., Biomedical Engineering, Washington University in St. Louis (2006).

Note: the tracked case list contains several entries that appear to be citation variants of the same Canon/Slingshot litigation, and one untitled of-counsel matter; the 4/5 plaintiff-defendant split should be read with that overlap in mind.