Carella, Byrne, Cecchi, Olstein, Brody & Agnello

I'll research this firm before drafting.

Let me dig into the tracked cases and the firm's IP/PTAB footprint.

Let me verify the firm's current footprint and its role in the AG 18 / DraftKings district court case.

Carella, Byrne, Cecchi, Olstein, Brody & Agnello, P.C. — Patent Litigation Practice

Firm overview. Carella Byrne is a full-service New Jersey general-practice firm headquartered at 5 Becker Farm Road, Roseland, N.J., formed from a 1976 partnership and expanded by a 1990 merger. Firm materials describe growth from four to "over 35 attorneys"; a 2016 declaration by name partner James E. Cecchi put the firm at "30 lawyers," and Martindale lists roughly 40 people in the Roseland office. Its own resume describes "offices in Roseland, New Jersey"; Best Lawyers' directory additionally lists Chicago and Miami locations, which I could not independently corroborate. It is a regional mid-size firm, not a BigLaw firm, national IP boutique, or AmLaw 200 entrant; no AmLaw or Chambers ranking was found. Best Lawyers/Best Law Firms (2024) recognizes it only in Bankruptcy & Creditor Debtor Rights and Commercial Litigation, and it is the New Jersey member of the State Capital Group (SCG Legal) network. Treat size figures as firm self-reporting, not audited.

IP litigation specialty. The firm maintains an IP department and states it is "nationally recognized in the fields of patent, trademark, copyright, unfair competition, trade secret law and antitrust law," with registered patent practitioners and technical credentials in chemical, mechanical, and electrical engineering, chemistry, and biochemistry. The most concrete public evidence of its technical litigation work is pharmaceutical: in a 2016 fee application, the firm listed ANDA/Hatch-Waxman matters including Aventis v. Teva (Allegra), Schering v. Ivax (Claritin), Eli Lilly v. Actavis, Merck v. Apotex (Trusopt), Janssen v. Apotex (Risperidone), Cephalon v. Mylan (Provigil), Celgene v. Barr (Thalomid), and Savient v. Sandoz (Oxandrolone), plus In re Gabapentin Patent Litigation, 395 F. Supp. 2d 175 (D.N.J. 2005), and a software copyright appeal, Thoroughbred Software Int'l v. Dice Corp., 488 F.3d 352 (6th Cir. 2007). Notably, the firm's two tracked patent matters — networked/online gaming patents — sit outside the pharma and engineering areas emphasized in its own marketing, so the tracked docket is a thin proxy for the claimed specialty.

Side preference. The tracked record shows zero plaintiff-side and two defendant-side appearances, both as local counsel (both attributed to James E. Cecchi). Firm descriptions indicate a genuinely two-sided IP practice — worldwide patent prosecution and licensing alongside infringement defense and, per Lindsey Taylor's profile, representation of "both plaintiffs and defendants" in patent, copyright, and trademark matters. But the firm's dominant institutional identity is not patent work at all: it is a plaintiffs'-side class action firm in securities, antitrust, and consumer fraud (e.g., Exxon dealer litigation, Merck/Vioxx securities, KPMG tax-shelter, Vytorin/Zetia, Takata and VW "Clean Diesel" MDLs). On the patent side specifically, the verifiable role is defense-side local counsel for an operating company.

Notable tracked matter. Both tracked cases arise from AG 18, LLC d/b/a Arrow Gaming v. DraftKings Inc., No. 2:21-cv-15737-KM-JSA (D.N.J.), in which a patent-holding plaintiff asserted five gaming-technology patents ('498, '205, '220, '657, '131) against DraftKings' DFS and casino products. DraftKings filed IPRs in August 2022; the PTAB instituted all of them in March 2023 and, on March 12–13, 2024, issued final written decisions finding all asserted claims unpatentable. The district court case was administratively terminated/stayed pending the IPRs. On appeal, AG 18, LLC v. DK Crown Holdings Inc., No. 24-1821 (Fed. Cir. Apr. 15, 2026) was affirmed under Fed. Cir. R. 36 (no opinion), and DK Crown Holdings Inc. v. AG 18, LLC, No. 24-2078 (Fed. Cir. May 6, 2026) was affirmed in a nonprecedential opinion leaving claim 18 of the '205 patent intact and rejecting DraftKings' late-raised reply theory and collateral-estoppel argument. Appellant/appellee advocacy in the Federal Circuit was by Baker Botts and Perkins Coie — the appellate and PTAB work was handled by national IP firms, not by Carella Byrne, consistent with its local-counsel role below.

PTAB / IPR practice. No public evidence supports a standalone IPR or PGR practice for this firm. No PTAB petitions or patent-owner filings naming Carella Byrne were located, and no public report gives any filing volume. The only IPR-adjacent matter on its docket is the AG 18/DraftKings dispute, in which the Board proceedings were prosecuted by outside national IP counsel. The firm should not be described as having an IPR practice on the current record.

Key personnel. James E. Cecchi (executive committee; the sole attorney of record on both tracked matters) leads complex litigation rather than a patent docket. Elliot M. Olstein, an executive-committee member and chemical engineer by training, handled the firm's IP work (patent procurement, validity/infringement opinions, licensing) and chaired the New Jersey State Bar's Patents, Trademarks, Copyrights & Unfair Competition Section. Lindsey H. Taylor (partner, since 2002) practices commercial and IP litigation, with reported patent and trademark decisions. G. Glennon Troublefield is described as a partner in the firm's Litigation and Intellectual Property Departments and is the firm's Best Lawyers-recognized attorney (bankruptcy and commercial litigation, not IP). Registered patent attorneys Francis C. Hand (of counsel) and Raymond J. Lillie appear in older firm materials, on the prosecution side; current status could not be confirmed.

Caveat: the tracked-appearance data (2 appearances, both local counsel) is a very small sample and should not be read as reflecting the firm's overall IP docket. The strongest sourced statements about this firm's IP capability come from its own filings and directory listings, not from independent rankings.