S. Ben Pleune

I'll research this attorney's background before drafting.

Let me dig into the tracked case and his notable outcomes.

Let me verify a few remaining details — prior firms, notable results, and his role in the tracked case.

S. Ben Pleune — Patent Litigation Practice Summary

Specialty / focus areas. Pleune is a patent litigator whose caseload spans consumer electronics and imaging (barcode scanners, scan engines, image sensors), telecommunications (3G/4G wireless devices, standard-essential patent issues), smart-home and HVAC technology (thermostats, energy management, load control), medical devices, pharmaceuticals, voice-recognition systems, and industrial/materials matters (e.g., UHMWPE surgical sutures, robotics, military mobility components). A substantial share of his work is before the U.S. International Trade Commission under Section 337, alongside district court and Federal Circuit litigation, and he regularly coordinates parallel validity and infringement proceedings with counsel in Germany, the Netherlands, the UK, China, and Japan. Clients in his reported matters are predominantly large operating companies — Honeywell, Resideo, Samsung, Snap One, Vocollect, Dell, and Palo Alto Networks among them.

Side preference. The one tracked appearance in this dataset is defense-side: local counsel for Samsung in Omni MedSci, Inc. v. Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. et al. Public reporting confirms Omni MedSci's wearable/biometric-sensor assertions against Samsung in the Eastern District of Texas (including a related 2025 action dismissed without prejudice in June 2025), with no merits ruling. That single-appearance sample is thin, but it is consistent with the broader public record, which is overwhelmingly defense-oriented — he defends operating companies against NPE/PAE and competitor assertions and also acts as petitioner in PTAB challenges (e.g., for Dell and Honeywell). He is not an NPE-side prosecutor.

Firm context. Pleune is a partner in Alston & Bird's Intellectual Property Litigation Group and is partner-in-charge of the firm's Charlotte office. He has practiced in North Carolina since 2002, and the sources reviewed show Alston & Bird as his only firm; no prior-firm history was reliably verifiable, and I found no in-house role.

Notable cases, PTAB, and credentials. Reported results include Honeywell's ITC barcode-scanner investigations, which produced a nine-figure settlement, and the Resideo smart-thermostat investigations, where the Commission found no violation and the Federal Circuit affirmed (Alston & Bird announced Federal Circuit wins for Resideo, Itron, and Ademco in November 2025, covering a PTAB appeal and a related ITC appeal, including Causam Enterprises v. ITC). He has appeared in more than 100 PTAB post-grant proceedings and co-edited/co-authored the USPTO Post-Grant Trials Handbook (Wolters Kluwer; 1st ed. 2016, 3rd ed. 2023), and is frequently ranked for both petitioner- and patent-owner-side IPR work. Bar/education: J.D., John Marshall Law School (University of Illinois Chicago), 2002; admitted in North Carolina and before the USPTO (Reg. No. 52,421), the Federal Circuit, the Fourth Circuit, and the federal district courts in North Carolina. Note: one aggregator listing shows conflicting education and admission dates that I could not corroborate against primary sources.