Robert McFarland

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Robert W. McFarland — McGuireWoods LLP (Norfolk, VA)

Specialty / focus. McFarland is a Virginia commercial and civil litigator whose court practice is concentrated in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia (Norfolk and Newport News divisions); McGuireWoods lists intellectual property among his practice areas, and he has been recognized by Virginia Super Lawyers in Intellectual Property Litigation. His tracked patent work is narrow and specific: network security and cybersecurity technology — packet filtering, network-threat detection, threat-intelligence scoring, and next-generation firewall functionality — arising from Centripetal Networks' infringement campaign against Palo Alto Networks. That is a cybersecurity/software focus, not a pharma, mechanical, or standards-setting (e.g., Wi-Fi/SEP) practice, and the public record does not show him as a first-chair patent trial lawyer with a standalone patent prosecution or claim-construction practice.

Side preference. His tracked record is entirely defendant-side (0 plaintiff appearances, 3 defendant appearances), and consistently in a local-counsel capacity. The defendant is an operating company (Palo Alto Networks) facing a patent-assertion plaintiff (Centripetal, a Reston, Virginia cybersecurity company frequently described in coverage as a patent assertion entity). This is consistent with the broader pattern for a Norfolk-based local counsel: retention by out-of-state firms to handle EDVA procedural, scheduling, discovery, and appearance obligations on behalf of corporate defendants.

Firm context. McFarland has been at McGuireWoods since 1985, following a federal judicial clerkship, and is a partner in the firm's Norfolk office. No prior firm history is reflected in the public sources reviewed; all three tracked appearances are attributed to McGuireWoods. He is not in-house.

Notable matters. The tracked cases all arise from Centripetal Networks, LLC v. Palo Alto Networks, Inc., No. 2:21-cv-00137 (E.D. Va., Norfolk Div.), and related PTAB appeals. In that litigation a jury returned a $151.5M verdict for Centripetal on January 31, 2024 (infringement of the '903, '573, '797, and '437 patents; no willfulness); on October 3, 2024 the court granted judgment as a matter of law of non-infringement as to the '437 patent and reduced the award to $113,625,000. His tracked Federal Circuit matter, No. 2024-2373, is an appeal from PTAB IPRs (IPR2023-00445, IPR2023-01329) captioned Centripetal Networks, LLC v. Keysight Technologies, Inc., Palo Alto Networks, Inc.; the Federal Circuit affirmed on June 9, 2026 under Rule 36 (nonprecedential). Merits briefing in that appeal was handled by other firms (Munger, Tolles & Olson for Palo Alto Networks; Reed Smith for appellees), which is consistent with his limited local-counsel role. Note: the underlying district court verdict, JMOL reduction, and PTAB invalidations were won by lead counsel at other firms — attributing those results to McFarland individually would overstate his involvement.

PTAB / IPR experience. No publicly available evidence indicates McFarland appears as counsel of record in IPR/PGR proceedings before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board; he is not listed among lead or back-up counsel in the Palo Alto Networks IPRs or on the PTAB docket. He does, however, have adjacent exposure to PTAB-driven litigation through the EDVA stay, IPR-estoppel, and IPR-petition-notice filings in the Centripetal case. There is no indication he is a registered patent practitioner.

Bar / education. Licensed in Virginia since 1984; J.D., Georgetown University Law Center (1984); B.A., University of Virginia (1981); former law clerk to the Hon. John A. MacKenzie, Chief Judge, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.