Bartlit Beck

I'll research the firm before writing.

Let me verify the tracked cases and dig into IPR practice and rankings.

Let me verify the remaining case details and the IPR practice.

Bartlit Beck LLP — Patent Litigation Practice Summary

Firm overview. Bartlit Beck LLP is a Chicago-headquartered trial boutique founded in 1993 by a group of trial lawyers who left Kirkland & Ellis; its only other office is Denver. It is small by design and by headcount: the National Law Journal's 2026 NLJ 500 lists 73 attorneys (482nd in the U.S.), while The American Lawyer's 2026 Am Law 200 places the firm at 183rd on $173.9 million in 2025 gross revenue (law.com firm profile). Roughly three-quarters of its lawyers are partners, and the firm uses fixed and success-based fees. Chambers USA 2026 ranks it Band 1 in General Commercial Litigation in both Illinois and Colorado (23 consecutive years each) and Band 3 in Product Liability & Mass Torts: The Elite — but only Band 4 in Intellectual Property (Illinois), a category where it has been ranked eight years. In other words, this is an elite general trial firm with a genuine but secondary IP litigation capability, not an IP boutique.

IP litigation specialty. The firm's own IP case list and attorney bios show a technology-agnostic, damages-and-trial-driven practice rather than a standards-heavy one. Verified subject matter includes flash-memory error correction (Viasat v. Kioxia/Western Digital; Viasat's `347 patent), Power-over-Ethernet networking (Network-1 v. Hewlett Packard Enterprise), storage-area networks, flash-memory controller and stacked-IC semiconductor technology (Elm 3DS v. Micron/Samsung/SK hynix), jet-engine fan blades (Rolls-Royce v. United Technologies), elevator controls, automotive mirror lighting and adaptive cruise control, medical devices and heart valves (Applied Medical v. U.S. Surgical; Colibri v. Medtronic CoreValve), and on-device speech recognition (Zentian v. Apple/Amazon). Pharmaceuticals and life sciences are a distinct strength: Gilead (HIV/Biktarvy and hepatitis C), Bayer's Cipro patent, ViiV v. Gilead, and current work for Northwestern University against Moderna over lipid-nanoparticle mRNA delivery. IAM Patent 1000 (2025) describes it as "a potent trial outfit… called on to handle high-exposure, technically complex cases."

Side preference — genuinely both sides. The tracked list shows 3 plaintiff-side and 2 defendant-side appearances, but the cases are largely parallel filings involving the same clients (Viasat as plaintiff in W.D. Tex. and as defendant in Western Digital's mirror-image action; Tempus AI appearing on both sides of the Tempus–Guardant dockets), so that split should be read with care. The firm's broader public record is clearly balanced: it defends operating companies — Gilead, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Medtronic, United Technologies/Pratt & Whitney, Bayer, DIRECTV, Silicon Graphics, FLEXcon — and it also prosecutes for patent owners, universities, and licensing entities, including Northwestern University, Viasat, Colibri Heart Valve, General Access Solutions, Carrum Technologies, and Zentian Ltd. It is not a volume NPE shop, but it is willing to take patent-owner plaintiffs.

Notable outcomes. Verifiable results include a $847 million verdict for General Access Solutions against Verizon (E.D. Tex., wireless patents, per Law Week Colorado), a $229 million verdict for Viasat against Kioxia in July 2026 (W.D. Tex.), and a $106.5 million induced-infringement verdict for Colibri Heart Valve against Medtronic CoreValve (C.D. Cal. 2023), which the firm's own bio notes was later overturned on appeal on a pure question of law. On defense, it obtained summary judgment of non-infringement for United Technologies in Rolls-Royce's jet-engine case after the court struck a nearly $4 billion damages theory; defense verdicts for HPE in Network-1 (PoE) and for United Technologies' Hamilton Sundstrand in Honeywell's APU suits; and a Federal Circuit affirmance for DIRECTV in Phoenix Solutions. Its older record includes a $164 million judgment for Viskase and a $23 million (enhanced to roughly $56 million) verdict for inventor Jacob Krippelz against Ford — the latter reversed on appeal with judgment of invalidity entered for Ford, an outcome worth noting for balance.

PTAB / IPR practice. The firm does not present itself as a high-volume PTAB filer, and I found no public report quantifying its IPR/PGR filing volume — treat any scale estimate as unsupported. It does have verified PTAB wins and losses: it secured an inter partes review victory for Gilead Sciences invalidating the Regents of the University of Minnesota's sofosbuvir patent (U.S. 8,815,830) on anticipation, a result the firm publicized in May 2021 and which drew "Litigator of the Week" runner-up recognition from The American Lawyer; on the other side, the Western Digital IPR invalidating Viasat's `347 flash-memory claims was affirmed by the Federal Circuit in January 2026 in a case where the firm represented Viasat. Its PTAB work appears to be case-embedded (piggybacking on district court engagements) rather than a standalone filing practice.

Key partners. Reliably sourced names include J. Scott McBride and Steven Derringer, both listed in the 2025 IAM Patent 1000, with McBride focused on pharmaceutical patent litigation and Derringer on complex technical trials; Matthew R. Ford, a Legal 500–recognized IP and commercial litigator who leads the Viasat matters (and is recorded here as lead counsel); and Sean W. Gallagher, who holds Chambers' highest individual ranking and appears in the tracked Tempus/Guardant matters. Other IP-capable trial partners named in firm materials and rankings include Meg E. Fasulo, John Hughes, Giovanni Sanchez, Glen Summers, and Rebecca Weinstein Bacon. Firm leadership is Chairman Sidney N. Herman and Managing Partner Jason L. Peltz (per Vault).

Caveats: partner rosters, headcount, and revenue figures change annually and are drawn from third-party rankings as cited. The tracked-appearance data above reflects only five recorded matters and likely understates the firm's docket; where I could not verify a fact (notably IPR filing volume and current status of the Zentian and Tempus patent actions), I have said so rather than estimate.