Richard R. Patch

I'll research this attorney before drafting.

Richard R. Patch — patent litigation practice summary

Focus areas. Mr. Patch is a generalist complex-civil-litigation and appellate trial lawyer rather than a patent specialist. His tracked patent appearance is on the defense side in I/P Engine, Inc. v. Microsoft Corp. (S.D.N.Y. No. 1:13-cv-00688), a software/search-advertising case asserting two Lycos-origin patents (U.S. 6,314,420 and 6,775,664) covering search-engine relevance filtering used in Bing's ad placement. Firm and directory profiles describe his core practice as cable television, satellite and telecommunications litigation, plus antitrust, unfair competition, class actions, real property and construction disputes, with "patent disputes" listed as one of several secondary areas. There is no public record indicating a consistent patent technology niche (no Wi-Fi/standards, pharma or mechanical portfolio surfaced in search).

Side preference. Based on the tracked data, he appears exclusively on the defendant/respondent side (0 plaintiff, 1 defendant), as lead counsel. That is consistent with his wider profile as a defense-side litigator for large operating companies — the firm's public materials note class-action defense work for Cox, Charter Communications and DISH Network. Nothing found suggests NPE/PAE-side or plaintiff-side patent prosecution work.

Firm context. He is a name partner at Coblentz Patch Duffy & Bass LLP (San Francisco), where he has spent his entire career: he joined as an associate in 1979, when the firm was Coblentz, Cahen, McCabe & Breyer, and later served as managing partner beginning around 1994. No prior-firm or in-house history was found.

Notable case and outcome. In the tracked matter, I/P Engine v. Microsoft, the parties settled on May 30, 2013 — roughly four months after filing — with Microsoft paying $1 million, agreeing to a contingent 5% share of any amounts Google later paid for the same patents, and assigning six patents (telecommunications, data management) to I/P Engine. The case did not reach a verdict; it resolved for a small fraction of the $696 million in damages I/P Engine was then seeking in its parallel action against Google and AOL. Beyond that matter, publicly verifiable patent results attributable specifically to Mr. Patch are thin; Coblentz has appeared in other patent matters (e.g., Vnus Medical Technologies v. Biolitec and the CamelBak patent dispute), but those dockets show other Coblentz attorneys as counsel of record, so they should not be credited to him without confirmation.

PTAB/IPR. No IPR, PGR or other PTAB proceeding with Mr. Patch named as counsel was located in searches. His tracked patent work appears to be district-court litigation only; patent-office trial practice is not a demonstrated feature of his practice.

Bar/education. Admitted to the California bar in 1979; J.D., University of California, Hastings College of the Law (now UC College of the Law, San Francisco), 1979 (Order of the Coif); B.A., University of California, Santa Barbara, 1975.

Caveats: his counsel-of-record status in the I/P Engine docket was not independently verified through a court record in this search, and no verified patent verdicts or Federal Circuit arguments by him were located.