Sheila N. Swaroop

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Sheila N. Swaroop — Patent Litigation Practice Summary

Focus areas. Swaroop is a first-chair IP litigator whose practice concentrates on complex patent and trade-secret disputes involving medical devices, consumer electronics, software, and electromechanical/robotics technologies. She is chair of Knobbe Martens' litigation practice and handles matters in district courts, the International Trade Commission, the Federal Circuit, and the PTAB. Her tracked matter, Avidbots Corp. v. Brain Corp., fits this profile: it concerns autonomous floor-scrubbing robot navigation, mapping, and optical-detection patents, and Swaroop appeared pro hac vice in the parallel Northern District of Illinois litigation (Brain Corp. v. Avidbots Corp., No. 1:24-cv-12569) alongside a set of PTAB challenges Avidbots filed against Brain Corp.'s patents.

Side preference. No clear one-sided pattern. On paper she is listed solely as plaintiff-side here (1 appearance, 0 defendant-side), reflecting Avidbots' role as the petitioner/plaintiff in the tracked PTAB proceedings. In practice, her larger body of work is predominantly defensive — representing accused product companies such as Apple Watch-maker Apple's opponent Masimo, Vizio, and Veros Credit — so the single-appearance tally should not be read as an NPE/PAE-style practice. She works both sides of patent disputes.

Firm and notable results. She has spent her career at Knobbe, Martens, Olson & Bear (Irvine, CA), where she became litigation chair in 2021. Reported highlights include serving as lead counsel for Masimo in Masimo Corp. v. Apple, where an eight-day Central District of California jury trial produced a $634 million infringement verdict (reported as the largest patent damages award in California in 2025), plus an ITC import ban on certain Apple Watch models; an antitrust verdict for Applied Medical against Medtronic (~$381 million); a win for Edwards Lifesciences on a transcatheter heart-valve patent; and a summary-judgment defense for Veros Credit in a trade-secret case. These outcomes are drawn from firm announcements and WIPR/Law.com coverage rather than independent court records I verified individually.

PTAB/IPR, bar, and education. She appears regularly in PTAB proceedings, including as lead counsel for patent owner Masimo (she filed the counsel-change notice, Reg. No. 53,658) and for Vizio in an IPR over LED brightness-control technology that resulted in a final written decision invalidating all challenged claims. She is a registered patent attorney, admitted in California since 1999, and earned her J.D. from UC Berkeley School of Law in 1999. No prior-firm history relevant to patent litigation was found in the sources reviewed.