Matt Denn

Matt Denn (Matthew P. Denn) — patent litigation summary

Specialty / focus areas. The tracked patent work is thin and does not describe a dedicated patent practice. His single tracked appearance is Affymetrix, Inc. v. Synteni, Inc., a life-sciences / biotechnology dispute over DNA microarray ("gene chip") patents — U.S. Patent Nos. 5,445,934, 5,744,305 and 5,800,992 — covering microarray apparatus and gene-expression detection methods. He does not appear in the tracked data in any Wi-Fi, software, mechanical or pharmaceutical patent matter, and no web source describes him as a patent specialist. Publicly available practice descriptions (Grant & Eisenhofer; DLA Piper) frame his practice as general commercial litigation in Delaware courts — Chancery, Superior Court's Complex Commercial Litigation Docket, the Delaware Supreme Court, and the U.S. District Court and Bankruptcy Court for Delaware — rather than patent prosecution or patent trial work.

Side preference. He has exactly one tracked appearance, on the plaintiff side (1 plaintiff / 0 defendant), and it was as local counsel for Affymetrix, the patentee. A single local-counsel engagement is not enough to infer a plaintiff-side or NPE/PAE orientation; nothing in the record suggests he has represented patent plaintiffs or defendants as lead trial counsel.

Firm context. He is currently listed at Grant & Eisenhofer P.A. as a litigator. Before that he was a partner in DLA Piper's litigation practice in Wilmington (announced January 2019, where he also served as managing partner of the Wilmington office). His earlier private-practice tenure, and the firm of record in the tracked case, was Young, Conaway, Stargatt & Taylor, where he became a partner in 2000; that period was interrupted by a long stretch in Delaware state government (legal counsel to the Governor, Insurance Commissioner, Lieutenant Governor, and Attorney General, 2015–2019).

Notable cases / outcomes. The only tracked matter, Affymetrix, Inc. v. Synteni, Inc., is notable mainly for its transfer ruling: the District of Delaware granted the defendants' § 1404(a) motions and sent the two consolidated actions to the Northern District of California (28 F. Supp. 2d 192 (D. Del. Nov. 18, 1998)), where they were later consolidated with Affymetrix v. Hyseq for claim construction. No verdict, settlement or Federal Circuit outcome is attributable to Denn in connection with that litigation, and I found no other verified patent results.

PTAB / IPR. No IPR, PGR or other PTAB appearances for this attorney were found. Do not assume PTAB experience.

Bar / education. Admitted in Delaware (1991); J.D., Yale Law School (1991); B.A., University of California, Berkeley (1988). Caveat: this is common-name risk territory — the Delaware lawyer/politician Matthew P. Denn is the individual who was at Young Conaway in 1998, but if the matter involves a different "Matt Denn," the appearance should be re-verified against the docket.