Martin S. Lessner

I'll research this attorney's background and practice.

Specialty / focus. Martin S. ("Marty") Lessner is not a patent-first litigator. His practice is Delaware corporate and commercial litigation — primarily the Court of Chancery and the Delaware Supreme Court — covering appraisal, fiduciary duty, expedited M&A disputes, proxy/voting, books-and-records, valuation, contract and trade-secret matters (Young Conaway firm bio; Chambers USA "Chancery" profile). His single tracked patent matter, Affymetrix, Inc. v. Synteni, Inc. et al., was a life-sciences case: infringement of DNA microarray patents (U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,445,934, 5,744,305 and 5,800,992) covering Affymetrix's GeneChip high-density array technology against Synteni/Incyte's competing GEM array. Beyond that case, his IP-adjacent work is trade-secret and technology disputes in Chancery rather than patent merits litigation — for example, the DTV Cast technology misappropriation claims in Bocock v. Innovate Corp. There is no evidence of a Wi-Fi/standards, software, or mechanical patent docket.

Side preference. The tracked data shows one appearance, on the plaintiff side, as Delaware local counsel for Affymetrix — i.e., Delaware-counsel/venue and procedural work rather than lead merits counsel. There are no tracked defendant-side patent appearances, so no reliable inference can be drawn about a plaintiff/NPE versus operating-company patent practice; a single local-counsel engagement is not a side-preference signal. Separately, his broader litigation practice is predominantly defense-side in corporate disputes (e.g., representing AXA, FuelCell Energy, Innovate Corp.), but that concerns Chancery matters, not patent cases.

Firm context and notable matters. Lessner has spent his career at Young Conaway Stargatt & Taylor, LLP in Wilmington, where he chairs the firm's Corporate Litigation and Counseling practice. No prior law-firm history is reflected in the sources reviewed (before law school he was a consultant at Arthur Andersen/Andersen Consulting). In the tracked patent case, he was among Delaware counsel for Affymetrix when Judge Sleet granted defendants' § 1404(a) motion and transferred both suits to the Northern District of California (Affymetrix, Inc. v. Synteni, Inc., 28 F. Supp. 2d 192 (D. Del. Nov. 18, 1998)); the related Affymetrix–Incyte litigation was ultimately settled in December 2001 with cross-licenses, per Incyte's Form 8-K. His more prominent reported results are corporate: Highfields Capital v. AXA Financial (Del. Ch. 2007 appraisal defense win for AXA); Dobler v. Montgomery Cellular ($12.5M post-trial judgment affirmed on appeal, with an early appraisal fee award); In re Celera, In re Ancestry.com, Yucaipa v. Riggio, In re Countrywide, Kronenberg v. Katz, and In re Pure Resources; and a 2021 Chancery win for FuelCell Energy defeating POSCO's books-and-records demand on improper-purpose grounds. Note: public D. Del. filings also show him serving as Delaware counsel in Czarnik v. Illumina, Inc. (C.A. No. 05-400-JJF), an inventorship/inequitable-conduct suit; that matter does not appear in the tracked list.

PTAB / IPR and credentials. No PTAB, IPR, PGR or Federal Circuit patent-appeal appearances were found for this attorney in the sources reviewed — his appellate work is Delaware Supreme Court corporate appeals. Bar and education: admitted in Delaware (1992) and Pennsylvania (1993, now inactive); J.D., cum laude, Villanova University School of Law (1992); B.S., cum laude, economics, Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania (1985); law clerk to then-Vice Chancellor Carolyn Berger, Delaware Court of Chancery (1992–93).