Dovel & Luner

Dovel & Luner LLP is a plaintiff-side litigation boutique based in Santa Monica, California. The firm litigates high-stakes business disputes, including intellectual property and patent infringement cases, exclusively for plaintiffs on a contingency-fee basis. While not an AmLaw-ranked firm, it is recognized by Chambers and Partners for its expertise in plaintiff-side commercial litigation. Though it operates from a single office, the firm litigates cases nationwide against some of the country's largest companies and law firms.

The firm's patent litigation practice spans a range of technologies, including software, networking, consumer electronics, and medical devices. The provided case list shows the firm representing plaintiffs in matters related to electronic cigarette technology (VPR Brands), financial data processing (DataTreasury), and an unspecified technology in TQP Development. The firm's website highlights its experience in areas like "push" notifications, Power over Ethernet, and visual voicemail. Consistent with the provided data showing exclusively plaintiff-side appearances, Dovel & Luner markets its practice as dedicated to enforcing patent rights for inventors and companies against large corporate defendants.

Of the tracked cases, public records show a settlement in VPR Brands, LP v. XL Vape LLC et al., where the defendants agreed to pay $155,000 and take a license to the asserted patent covering auto-draw technology in electronic vaporizers. In the DataTreasury Corporation v. Fidelity National Information Services, Inc. matter, where Gregory Dovel was lead counsel for the plaintiff, the patents at issue covering check-imaging technology were ultimately invalidated in a Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) proceeding, a decision later affirmed by the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. No public outcome could be readily sourced for TQP Development, LLC v. Chegg Inc. Beyond the tracked cases, the firm is known for securing an $85 million jury verdict for SimpleAir Inc. against Google in a case involving push notification patents.

Dovel & Luner has a significant PTAB practice, which it uses to defend its clients' patents against invalidity challenges. The firm's website claims an exceptionally high success rate in these proceedings, stating that out of 49 PTAB proceedings involving its clients, only one patent has been invalidated. Key partners in the firm's patent and business litigation practices include Gregory S. Dovel and Sean A. Luner, who co-founded the firm in 1998, and Julien Adams, a trial lawyer who became a partner in 2002.