Thomas A. Lewry

Thomas A. Lewry is an experienced patent litigator with over 40 years of experience, currently serving as Chair Emeritus of Litigation at Brooks Kushman. His practice encompasses a broad range of intellectual property matters, including patents, trademarks, copyrights, and trade secret misappropriation, alongside general business litigation such as breach of contract, fraud, and shareholder derivative matters. He has demonstrated expertise across various technology areas, with a particular focus on complex enterprise software and technologies relevant to the transportation and e-commerce sectors, consistent with his background in computer engineering.

Lewry primarily represents defendants, notably operating companies, in high-stakes intellectual property disputes. His case history, including his lead counsel role for Ford Motor Company in Autonavigare LLC v. Ford Motor Company, reflects a strong orientation towards defending corporate clients against infringement claims. A significant example of his defense work is his role as lead counsel for Ford in Versata Software v. Ford Motor Company, where his team successfully defended against claims involving over 30 alleged trade secrets, 16 patents, 5 copyrights, and breach of contract, reducing Versata's initial demand of over $1.4 billion to just $3 in nominal damages after more than eight years of litigation and a three-week jury trial.

His experience extends to post-grant proceedings, with the Versata case alone involving more than 20 Inter Partes Reviews (IPRs) and Covered Business Method Reviews (CBMRs). This highlights his extensive engagement with PTAB proceedings as a strategic component of his patent defense practice. Beyond patent matters, Lewry has also achieved favorable outcomes in other complex litigation, such as the successful defense of breach of fiduciary duty claims in Palmer v. Fox Software Inc. et al., where a $22 million jury verdict was ultimately reversed on appeal.

Thomas Lewry earned both his Juris Doctor and a Bachelor of Science in Computer Engineering from the University of Michigan. He is also a registered patent attorney and has contributed to legal education as an Adjunct Professor at Wayne State Law School and a Visiting Scholar/Lecturer at the University of Michigan, teaching patent law fundamentals.