Michael A. Barlow

I'll research this attorney, being careful to disambiguate from others sharing the name.

Michael A. Barlow — Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan (Wilmington, Del.)

Specialty / focus. Barlow is not primarily a patent litigator. He is a Delaware Chancery and complex-commercial litigator — fiduciary duty, corporate governance, M&A and transaction disputes — who appears in patent cases in the capacity of Delaware counsel. His tracked patent-side exposure is in life sciences and medical devices: the sole tracked appearance is Abbott Diabetes Care Inc. v. DexCom, Inc. (D. Del.), a long-running continuous-glucose-monitor dispute that is as much a contract fight as a patent fight (the parties' 2014 settlement and license agreement governed forum, no-challenge covenants and IPR rights). A separate D. Del. appearance as Delaware counsel for Tempus AI in Guardant Health, Inc. v. Tempus AI, Inc. (cancer diagnostics; Barlow withdrew his appearance in October 2024, per the docket) reinforces the life-sciences pattern. There is no evidence in available sources of Wi-Fi/standard-essential, pharmaceutical-chemistry, or mechanical patent work.

Side preference. The tracked record is 0 plaintiff / 1 defendant, and his patent-case work has been on the defense side as local Delaware counsel for operating companies (DexCom, Tempus) rather than as counsel prosecuting for NPEs/PAEs. Note that the plaintiff/defendant split here should be read with care: as Delaware counsel, Barlow's role is to satisfy local practice and Delaware-law issues, not to run the infringement or invalidity case on the merits.

Firm context and notable matters. Barlow is the founding managing partner of Quinn Emanuel's Wilmington office, which he opened in January 2024 after joining from Abrams & Bayliss LLP (2016–2024). Earlier he was a corporate litigator at Skadden Arps in Wilmington (2002–2009), and he served as Chief Legal Counsel (2009–2012) and then Chief of Staff (2012–2016) to Delaware Governor Jack Markell. On the patent side, the related Federal Circuit decision in DexCom, Inc. v. Abbott Diabetes Care, Inc., No. 23-1795 (Fed. Cir. Jan. 3, 2024) (Dyk, Hughes, Stoll) is the most prominent verifiable outcome: the court affirmed denial of DexCom's preliminary injunction, holding that the license agreement's Delaware forum-selection clause did not bar Abbott's post-Covenant-Period IPR petitions. That was a loss for Barlow's client side, though a precedential ruling construing forum-selection clauses against IPR filings. His better-documented wins are non-patent Delaware matters — AB Stable VIII LLC v. MAPS Hotels (Mirae Asset, first COVID-era "busted deal" trial; affirmed 268 A.3d 198 (Del. 2021)), Snow Phipps Group v. KCAKE Acquisition (specific performance), Express Scripts v. Bracket Holdings, 248 A.3d 824 (Del. 2021), and a 2025 preliminary-injunction win for Optilogic against Coupa/LLamasoft.

PTAB / IPR and credentials. No sources indicate Barlow personally appears as counsel in IPR or PGR proceedings; his IPR exposure is indirect, as Delaware counsel in district court cases running in parallel with PTAB challenges (as in Abbott/DexCom). Bar and education, on the firm's own profile: Harvard Law School (J.D., 2000); University of Delaware (B.A., magna cum laude, 1997); admitted in Delaware and before the District of Delaware and the Third, Fourth and Sixth Circuits; prior clerkships with Judge Roderick R. McKelvie (D. Del.) and Judge Thomas L. Ambro (3d Cir.). He is a Delaware-bar practitioner (Del. Bar No. 3928) and is ranked in Chambers USA for Delaware Chancery — a corporate-litigation ranking, not a patent ranking.