Stephen Edward Noona

Specialty / focus areas. Noona is a veteran trial lawyer whose patent practice concentrates on software and network-communications technology, most recently cybersecurity patents directed to packet filtering, network-threat detection, packet correlation, and selective decryption of encrypted traffic. Chambers and Best Lawyers describe him as head of the Litigation Section and the Intellectual Property Law Practice Group at Kaufman & Canoles (Norfolk, VA), with more than 125 patent-case appearances in the Eastern District of Virginia's "rocket docket," plus antitrust, franchising, and general IP litigation.

Side preference / client mix. All 11 tracked appearances are plaintiff-side, every one for cybersecurity firm Centripetal Networks, Inc., usually as EDVA local counsel (8) alongside out-of-state lead counsel, and in two matters as lead or lead local counsel — including Federal Circuit Appeal No. 2024-2373. His broader practice is not one-sided: Law.com reports defense appearances he has entered for Google (2024) and Allscripts Healthcare in patent suits, and directory profiles list defense jury trials in the EDVA. The tracked docket, however, reflects a sustained local-counsel role for a patent-assertion plaintiff in the rocket docket.

Notable matters. His tracked work sits inside Centripetal's multi-front assertion campaign against network-security vendors — Centripetal Networks v. Keysight Technologies (multiple EDVA actions, E.D. Va. No. 2:22-cv-2 and predecessors), Centripetal Networks v. Palo Alto Networks (E.D. Va. No. 2:21-cv-137), Centripetal Networks v. LookingGlass Cyber Solutions (lead counsel), and Centripetal Networks v. Cisco Systems. Recent outcomes at the Federal Circuit have largely favored the challengers: in 2024-2372/2373 the court affirmed PTAB unpatentability rulings by Rule 36 (June 2026), and in related appeals it affirmed the Board's findings that Centripetal's '526 and '917 patents were unpatentable (Apr. 2026) while reversing the Board on two claims — still against Centripetal. The parallel Palo Alto Networks v. Centripetal appeal (No. 2023-1654) was affirmed in Centripetal's favor at the Board stage in part, and in December 2024 the Federal Circuit vacated and remanded a PTAB decision for inadequate reasoning on motivation to combine.

PTAB / IPR experience. He does not appear as petitioning or patent-owner counsel in the tracked IPRs themselves, but his docket is deeply IPR-adjacent: nearly every Centripetal patent he has litigated has been attacked in inter partes review by Keysight or Palo Alto Networks (often resulting in stays of the EDVA cases and a parallel ITC proceeding), and his lead role on Federal Circuit Appeal No. 2024-2373 — a PTAB appeal — makes him the appellate point person on IPR final written decisions.

Bar / education. Admitted in Virginia (1985); B.A. (1982, high distinction) and J.D. (1985) from the University of Virginia; Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers and a past president of the Virginia State Bar's Intellectual Property Law Section.