Todd Stephen Werner

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Todd Stephen Werner — Patent Litigation Practice Summary

Specialty / focus areas. Werner's practice is anchored in pharmaceutical Hatch-Waxman/ANDA litigation, drawing on an undergraduate biochemistry/chemistry background, and extends into life sciences, electrical/software, mechanical, and chemical arts. His firm bio identifies roughly two decades of ANDA work, with representative matters involving dimethyl fumarate (Tecfidera®), abuse-deterrent oxycodone formulations, bortezomib (Velcade®), olopatadine ophthalmics, the NuvaRing® contraceptive, and ibrutinib polymorphs. On the non-pharma side, his docket covers offshore drilling equipment (pneumatic conveyance of drill cuttings), spinal implants, and automotive software/telematics — including asserted patents directed to vehicle infotainment, on-board network security, and implementations of the AUTOSAR automotive software standard.

Side preference. The tracked case list shows Werner exclusively on the plaintiff/patent-owner side in four appearances (Moskowitz Family LLC, three AutoConnect Holdings entries), and that sample is real but narrow. Web-verified docket and firm materials show a substantial defendant-side practice as well: he has represented generic manufacturers including Hetero Labs, Teva, MSN Laboratories, and Annora/Camber Pharmaceuticals against brand-company infringement claims. In practice he is a two-sided patent litigator — asserting patents for owners and portfolio holders on one hand, and defending ANDA filers on the other — rather than a dedicated NPE/PAE plaintiffs' lawyer or a captive defense counsel.

Firm context, bar, and education. Werner is a partner and founder at Avantech Law, LLP (Minneapolis, MN), the firm of record in three of his four tracked appearances (the fourth, AutoConnect v. General Motors, lists no firm). He previously practiced at Carlson, Caspers, Vandenburgh & Lindquist, P.A. (Carlson Caspers), where he was a partner and where he handled IPR pro hac vice work as recently as 2021. He received a B.S. from Michigan Technological University in 2000 (biochemistry/chemistry) and a J.D. from the University of Minnesota in 2003. He has been licensed in Minnesota since 2003 (Minnesota bar no. 033019X) and is admitted to the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit; he is not a registered USPTO practitioner and appears before the PTAB by pro hac vice admission.

Notable cases and outcomes. His most prominent verified results: in M-I Drilling Fluids UK Ltd. v. Dynamic Air Inc., he obtained PTAB invalidation of 114 of 117 challenged claims across five Schlumberger patents, which led the plaintiff to dismiss its district court claims, plus a fee award of roughly $1.3–1.4 million under 35 U.S.C. § 285 that was maintained on appeal. For Hetero Labs, he secured a written-description invalidity ruling against Biogen's Tecfidera® dosing patent; the Federal Circuit affirmed written-description invalidity on the parallel Biogen appeal (Biogen Int'l GmbH v. Mylan Pharms. Inc., Fed. Cir. 2021). For Teva, he obtained invalidity judgments at a S.D.N.Y. bench trial on four Purdue abuse-deterrent patents and a non-infringement/invalidity judgment on a fifth, upheld on appeal. In currently active matters he represents Moskowitz Family LLC against Medtronic in the District of Minnesota (asserting spinal-surgery patents) and AutoConnect Holdings against Ford and General Motors.

PTAB / IPR experience. Werner appears regularly in PTAB proceedings, including IPR2016-00256, -00259, -00260, -00262, -00263, and -00264, and IPR2021-00625. He has been designated a provisionally recognized PTAB attorney eligible for automatic pro hac vice admission in PGR2025-00041 and IPR2025-01342, IPR2025-01383, IPR2026-00163 (Moskowitz), and IPR2026-00265, and he has never been denied pro hac vice admission in a Board proceeding. Both petitioning and patent-owner-side IPR work appear in his record.

Note: the "Moskowitz Family LLC v. Medtronic Sofamor Danek Inc. et al." entry in the tracked list corresponds to the D. Minn. action docketed as Moskowitz Family LLC v. Medtronic, Inc. et al., No. 0:25-cv-00769 (PJS/DLM).