Stephen D. Lott

I'll research this attorney's background before writing the summary.

Let me search more specifically for the tracked case and any Alston & Bird attorney by this name.

The name search is surfacing a different attorney (a trademark lawyer at Seyfarth Shaw). Let me disambiguate and look for an Alston & Bird patent litigator by this name, plus the tracked case docket.

Attorney Summary: Stephen D. Lott

Scope note / disambiguation. Public-source verification for this attorney is limited and partially conflicting, so the following distinguishes what the tracked case list establishes from what I could independently confirm. The tracked data (authoritative) shows a single patent-litigation appearance: Ironburg Inventions Ltd. v. Collective Minds Gaming Co. Ltd., on the plaintiff side, at Alston & Bird, in an "of counsel" role. My searches did not surface an Alston & Bird attorney by this name; the prominent publicly profiled "Stephen D. Lott" is a trademark/copyright lawyer (Seyfarth Shaw, Charlotte; previously Norvell IP in Chicago and a Chicago boutique; J.D., University of Florida, 2011). That trademark profile does not match an Alston & Bird patent-litigation practice, and I could not confirm it is the same person. Treat the bar/education and firm-history details for the trademark attorney as not attributable to this patent practice without further confirmation.

Specialty / focus. Based only on the tracked matter, the practice centers on patent litigation over consumer electronics hardware — specifically video game controllers. Ironburg v. Collective Minds (N.D. Ga., No. 1:16-cv-04110-TWT) asserted five patents (U.S. 8,641,525; 9,089,770; 9,289,688; 9,352,229; 9,308,450) covering back-of-controller "paddle" controls and adjustable triggers, aimed at the defendant's Strike Pack accessory. I found no published practice description or technology-area listing for an Alston & Bird attorney of this name.

Side preference. With only one tracked appearance, all on the plaintiff / patent-owner side (Ironburg, a U.K. patent-holder), there is no basis to characterize a defense-versus-assertion pattern. The sample is too small to support any reliable side preference.

Firm context and notable case. Current tracked firm is Alston & Bird, as of counsel. I could not verify prior patent-litigation firms for this individual. The one tracked matter — Ironburg v. Collective Minds — sits alongside the better-known companion case Ironburg Inventions Ltd. v. Valve Corp., which produced a $4.0 million jury verdict for Ironburg and a Federal Circuit appeal addressing the "skilled searcher" standard for printed-publication prior art. Note, however, that the docket filings I reviewed in Ironburg v. Collective Minds list plaintiff's counsel from Manatt, Phelps & Phillips (Robert D. Becker), Parks IP Law (Cynthia R. Parks), and defendant's counsel from Erise IP and Hill, Kertscher & Wharton — no Alston & Bird appearance appeared in the documents retrieved, so the tracked Alston & Bird/of-counsel involvement could not be corroborated.

PTAB / IPR experience. The Ironburg controller patent family generated substantial PTAB activity — e.g., IPR2016-00948 and IPR2018-00354 (Collective Minds v. Ironburg) and multiple Valve-filed IPRs that cancelled claims of the '525 and '770 patents and led to stays of the district court cases. I found no record establishing that this attorney personally appeared in those IPR/PGR proceedings; the PTAB filings I located name Manatt and other counsel. No basis to describe him as a regular PTAB practitioner.

Bar / education. Not reliably sourced for the Alston & Bird patent practice. The only matched-by-name credentials (Florida, D.C., Illinois and North Carolina admissions; J.D., University of Florida, 2011) belong to the trademark lawyer described above and should be verified before being attributed here.

Recommendation: Given the name ambiguity and the absence of corroborating docket or firm-page evidence, confirm the individual's identity (middle name, bar number, or Alston & Bird bio) and firm tenure before relying on any biographical details.