Rachael Dauphine Lamkin

Rachael Dauphine Lamkin — Partner, Baker Botts LLP (San Francisco)

Specialty and technology focus. Lamkin is a first-chair patent litigator whose practice centers on defense against non-practicing entities, with substantial district court work involving consumer electronics, software and cloud/distributed-computing infrastructure, networking, and consumer products. Her published experience list includes cases over personal electronics and protective cases (OtterBox/LifeProof), GPS and wearable devices (Garmin), speech and dictation software (Nuance), document software (Foxit), and social/imaging apps (Cellspin, CompanyCam). She has handled matters in the N.D., C.D., and S.D. Cal., E.D. and W.D. Tex., the ITC, the Court of International Trade, and the Federal Circuit, and has coordinated with counsel in the EU and China. Caveat: this summary relies on firm/press descriptions and docket records rather than a verified case-level technology inventory; treat the technology mix as directional.

Side preference. Firm and directory profiles describe her as litigating "both sides of the v" while specializing in patent defense, and she is widely characterized in the NPE-defense bar (Daily Journal, IPWatchdog, IAM) for aggressive anti-NPE strategies — attorney's fees awards, fraudulent-transfer claims, and settlement injunctions. Note the tension with the tracked docket data provided here, which shows only 2 tracked appearances, both on the plaintiff side (Starbucks as declaratory-judgment plaintiff; one untitled plaintiff-side appearance). That tracked sample is small and appears to capture only a slice of her recent docket, so it should not be read as an accurate plaintiff/defendant ratio. Verified defense-side matters include Valjakka v. Netflix (N.D. Cal.), Philips North America v. Garmin, Synkloud v. Nuance, and Rothschild Digital Confirmation v. CompanyCam.

Firm context. Lamkin has been a partner in Baker Botts' IP Litigation group in San Francisco since June 2023, arriving from Lamkin IP Defense, the boutique she founded in 2016. Earlier in her career she served as Senior Associate General Counsel in-house for the OtterBox/LifeProof/Blue Ocean family of companies, handling litigation globally.

Notable matters. The most prominent tracked case is Starbucks Corp. v. Valtrus Innovations Ltd. (W.D. Wash., No. 2:25-cv-01859), where she is lead counsel for Starbucks in a declaratory-judgment action of non-infringement/invalidity against eleven former HPE data-center and open-source-infrastructure patents, paired with a bad-faith assertion claim under Washington's Patent Troll Prevention Act; the case was later terminated (per IAM reporting) as Valtrus refocused its campaign elsewhere. Rothschild v. Starbucks Corp. (S.D. Fla.) is an offshoot defamation action against Lamkin and Starbucks over a quoted Bloomberg Law statement about Rothschild entities' inability to pay fee awards; the court denied Rothschild's motion for judgment on the pleadings and allowed her abuse-of-process counterclaim to proceed. Other reported results: summary judgment for Garmin in Philips North America (two cases reportedly worth ~$1B combined) and for Nuance in Synkloud; a § 101 win plus fee award for CompanyCam; and a Rule 12(c) dismissal plus fee award in Kindred Studio v. Electronic Communication Technology, where the NPE plaintiff agreed never again to sue in California. She was named to the Daily Journal's Top IP Lawyers list (2025) and The Recorder's Women Leaders in Tech Law (IP, 2024).

PTAB / IPR. Firm bios state she has experience before the PTAB and Federal Circuit, and district court filings show her working alongside parallel IPR proceedings (e.g., Philips/Garmin) and using PTAB positions offensively in claim construction. I found no verified record of her as lead counsel on a specific IPR/PGR petition, so her regular PTAB appearance record is not established by the sources reviewed.

Bar and education. Admitted in California (state and federal courts) and before the Federal Circuit, ITC, and Court of International Trade, with admissions in Colorado and the E.D./W.D. Texas; J.D., UC Davis School of Law (2006); B.A., Philosophy (minor in Neuroscience), California State University, Sacramento (2000).

(One note on name confusion: a 2026 "Best Lawyers" listing renders the name "Rachel Lamkin" for the same San Francisco Baker Botts IP litigation practice — likely the same attorney, but the record is not definitive.)