Paul R. Morico

I'll research Paul R. Morico's professional background and patent litigation practice.

Let me verify the tracked cases and any notable outcomes.

Paul R. Morico — Baker Botts LLP (Houston)

Specialty / focus areas. Morico's patent litigation practice is anchored in energy and industrial technologies — oil and gas (downhole drilling and seismic tools, fracturing equipment, subsea wellheads, risers, umbilicals and connectors), power generation, and mechanical devices. He chairs Baker Botts' firmwide Energy IP practice group, and his firm bio also lists substantial work in home appliances and HVAC, automotive, computer software, semiconductors, nanotechnology/DNA sequencing, gene-therapy cancer treatments and plant genetics. His docket reflects that range: residential refrigerators and HVAC equipment (Whirlpool, Goodman), nanopore DNA-sequencing devices (Oxford Nanopore), mercury-capture chemistry for coal-fired power plants, engineered crops, and DRAM semiconductors for Samsung. There is no indication of Wi-Fi/standards-essential patent or Hatch-Waxman/pharma work.

Side preference. The tracked record is exclusively defense-side — 0 plaintiff, 4 defendant appearances, all at Baker Botts — and that reflects the core of his practice: defending operating companies such as Whirlpool (BSH Home Appliances Corp. v. Whirlpool Corp., where he is listed as lead counsel), Evergy (Midwest Energy Emissions Corp. v. Evergy, Inc., S.D. Iowa, lead counsel), and the defendants in the consolidated In re: Midwest Energy Emissions Corp. Patent Litigation MDL. His broader (non-tracked) history does include plaintiff/inventor-side and university representations — Utex Industries, the Regents of the University of California, Rainforest Cafe, Emi-Tech — so he is best characterized as a defense-leaning first-chair trial lawyer rather than an NPE/PAE monetization specialist.

Notable cases and outcomes. Verified highlights include a 7-day Delaware jury trial for Whirlpool and Maytag against LG Electronics on refrigerator patents, a 5-day Delaware jury trial for Goodman Global against Carrier on HVAC patents, and ITC investigations defending Oxford Nanopore against Illumina and Pacific Biosciences (Inv. Nos. 337-TA-991 and 337-TA-1032), plus a 5-day ITC hearing for Whirlpool on refrigerators. He secured a defense verdict for Dril-Quip and a former FMC employee in a month-long Texas trade-secret jury trial, and a jury verdict with punitive damages for Emi-Tech in a leak-detection trade-secret case. Note on the Midwest Energy Emissions matters: the well-publicized $57 million (later ~$68.3 million with interest) Delaware verdict in Midwest Energy Emissions Corp. v. Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. was won by plaintiff's counsel, Caldwell Cassady & Curry, against the CERT Operations defendants — not by Morico, who appears on the defense side for Evergy in the related S.D. Iowa action and the MDL. I could not verify a public outcome for BSH Home Appliances v. Whirlpool.

PTAB / IPR experience. He does appear regularly in USPTO proceedings. His firm bio lists a post-grant review for Dril-Quip challenging an FMC Technologies subsea Christmas tree patent, two IPRs for Baylor College of Medicine on immuno-cancer therapy patents, an IPR defense for Utex Industries on frack-pump seal patents, and Whirlpool interferences and roughly half a dozen inter partes reexaminations against LG. His UIA CV also notes a denial of an IPR petition on behalf of a patent owner in an oil services dispute.

Bar / education. J.D., Columbia Law School (1990); B.S. in Mechanical Engineering and Mathematics, Trinity College (1987). Admitted in Texas and before the USPTO and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (an older CV also lists Connecticut, D.C. and New York bars); he has held leadership roles in the ABA IP Section and state/local IP organizations.