Scott W. Cummings

Scott W. Cummings — Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner (Washington, D.C.)

Specialty / focus. Cummings is a patent litigator and registered patent attorney whose practice spans district court litigation, PTAB post-grant work, and patent prosecution/counseling. His technology range is broad and largely engineering- and materials-oriented: computer hardware and software, streaming/server architecture, data storage and synchronization, medical devices, nanotechnology, metallurgy, inorganic and polymer chemistry, mechanical systems, oil and gas, and business methods. The tracked matters fit that profile — live sports streaming and server/socket architecture (the Sportradar/SportsCastr–PANDA patents), composite sail construction (North Sails v. Team New Zealand), and mobile/consumer electronics work described on his firm bio. Firm materials also describe work in life sciences and clean/renewable energy.

Side preference. He works both sides rather than favoring one. The tracked appearances split 5 defendant-side to 3 plaintiff-side, and his firm bio and third-party rankings describe victories for both patent owners and patent challengers. Several of his representative PTAB matters were brought as petitioner (including Sportradar AG, where he is listed as lead counsel for the petitioner), while others defended patent owners — so the more accurate characterization is a defense-leaning but genuinely two-sided practice, including declaratory-judgment plaintiffs, rather than an NPE/PAE-focused prosecution shop.

Firm context. He has been a partner in BCLP's Intellectual Property and Technology group since June 2023, joining the Washington, D.C. office as part of a multi-lawyer lateral group. Before BCLP he was at Dentons, where he led the post-grant group within the IP and technology practice (BCLP/Law360/American Lawyer, June 2023). Earlier in his career he spent roughly eight years as a USPTO patent examiner, which underlies his USPTO-procedure practice.

Notable cases and outcomes. Prominent tracked matters include Sportradar AG v. SportsCastr Inc. (d/b/a PANDA Interactive) and North Sails Group, LLC v. Team New Zealand Ltd (E.D. Va., a sail-inventorship dispute over U.S. Patent 12,110,089, where North Sails' parallel PGR2025-00062 was denied institution in January 2026). In the Sportradar/PANDA dispute, his team filed a series of IPR petitions (IPR2025-00265 through -00273) that were met with discretionary denial in mid-2025; the underlying E.D. Tex. litigation settled in March 2026, with PANDA dismissing its claims with prejudice (Sportradar disclosed the associated litigation cost including settlement in its 2025 results). He is also listed as PTAB counsel in the Genius Sports Ltd. v. SportsCastr IPR family (IPR2024-01305, -01307, -01308, -01309, -01310, -01311), in which the Board issued final written decisions in March 2026 holding all challenged claims unpatentable. A tracked Federal Circuit matter, Appeal No. 26-1810, lists him as lead counsel for the defendant.

PTAB / IPR experience. This is a core strength. Firm and IAM Patent 1000 materials describe him as a PTAB expert with a strong IPR record and extensive first-chair experience in IPRs and PGRs, including petition drafting, motions practice, oral argument, joinder, and related stays of district court cases, for both petitioners and patent owners. He also writes on PTAB/USPTO procedure (e.g., a 2026 WIPR article with George Chen on USPTO changes and expected patent-litigation trends).

Bar / education. Registered to practice before the USPTO (Reg. No. 41,567); admitted in Virginia (1995) and the District of Columbia (1998), and before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. J.D., American University, 1995; B.S., North Carolina State University, 1988 (per his firm profile).