Desmarais

Firm overview. Desmarais LLP is a premier U.S. intellectual property litigation boutique founded in June 2010 by John M. Desmarais, the former head of Kirkland & Ellis's firmwide IP litigation practice and a fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers (firm bio; BTI Consulting; ACTL). It is headquartered at 230 Park Avenue in New York, with offices in San Francisco and Washington, D.C., and roughly 75–85 attorneys and 27 partners (Chambers.com firm profile; IP STARS). It is not a general-practice BigLaw firm; rather, it is a trial-focused specialist consistently recognized in Chambers USA as a leading IP: Patent Litigation practice, and honored by Managing IP as 2025 Firm of the Year for Patent Disputes (and earlier as Boutique Firm of the Year), with IAM Patent 1000 top-tier rankings and a Law360 IP Group of the Year award (firm news; World IP Review). The firm is known for abandoning the billable hour in favor of flat-fee and contingent/hybrid arrangements (firm website; IP STARS).

IP litigation specialty. The practice centers on complex, trial-bound technology disputes across district courts, the Federal Circuit, the ITC (20+ investigations), and the PTAB. The firm's self-described coverage spans semiconductors, telecommunications and networking, computer software, consumer electronics, pharmaceuticals, medical devices, biotechnology, chemicals, and transportation (Chambers profile; firm website). In practice, its docket clusters around high-tech hardware and software (Apple Watch/wearables, VPN and networking, e-commerce and software patents) and life sciences (prenatal genetic diagnostics, Hatch-Waxman and BPCIA pharma matters, medical devices such as blood pumps).

Side preference. Desmarais works both sides of the "v." In the 53 tracked appearances, defendant-side representations dominate (35 appearances, ~66%) versus plaintiff-side (18, ~34%). The defense work is anchored by operating-company clients such as Apple, Cisco, IBM, Samsung, Dell, and Verizon, while its plaintiff work is prominent for patent owners and licensing entities — most notably Ravgen, IBM, and Alcatel-Lucent (firm's own "Representative Patent Trials for the Plaintiff/Defendant" lists). This two-sided posture is deliberate; the firm says it represents Fortune 100 companies and individual inventors alike (Best Lawyers firm overview; Vault).

Notable cases and outcomes. The firm's headline results include: Ravgen v. LabCorp — a $272.5M jury verdict plus $100M in enhanced damages (W.D. Tex.), and Ravgen v. Natera — a $57M verdict, for roughly $429.5M in total damages on Ravgen's prenatal-testing patents, with three Federal Circuit affirmances in January 2025 (firm news); Apple v. Masimo — John Desmarais served as lead trial counsel and obtained a willful-infringement verdict for Apple on Apple Watch design patents (D. Del., 2024) (firm bio; World IP Review); Samsung — a Desmarais/Kirkland team defeated a ~$4B damages claim in the Demaray semiconductor dispute (W.D. Tex., 2024); IBM v. Groupon — an $82.5M verdict in IBM's first jury trial as a plaintiff; and Cisco — a $400M settlement against Arista (Law360 profile of the firm). Defense verdicts include Maquet v. Abiomed (complete verdict, D. Mass., May 2026), Identity Security v. Apple (complete defense verdict against a $361M claim, W.D. Tex., 2024), and Egenera v. Cisco (firm website).

PTAB/IPR practice and key partners. PTAB work is a genuine specialty, on both the petitioner and patent-owner sides; the firm says it is ranked among the "best performing" and "most active" PTAB firms (desmaraisllp.com/post-grant). Its signature defense was defeating ten IPR petitions from four challengers against Ravgen's patents — with all claims upheld in six final written decisions and on Federal Circuit appeal (firm news) — while it also files IPRs for petitioners such as Apple, Cisco, and Microsoft, often with Sotera stipulations (PTAB filings). Partner Gabrielle Higgins alone has been counsel of record in 130+ IPR proceedings, and Tim Cho leads the PTAB group (IP STARS; firm bio). Key partners include founder John M. Desmarais, Paul A. Bondor (jury-trial practice), Leslie M. Spencer, and Chambers-recognized Betty H. Chen; Kerri-Ann Limbeek and Brian Matty led the Ravgen district-court and PTAB/Federal Circuit campaigns (Chambers; firm news).