Francis Law Firm

I'll research this firm before drafting.

Let me verify the case posture and the firm's current status.

Let me verify the firm's current status and the fifth case caption.

Francis Law Firm, PLLC — Patent Litigation Practice Summary

Firm overview. Francis Law Firm, PLLC is a small IP boutique in Lexington, Kentucky (4071 Tates Creek Centre Dr., Ste. 304), built around registered patent attorney James M. ("Jim") Francis. Public profiles describe it as a solo/single-principal practice serving entrepreneurs and businesses in intellectual property, trademark, and business law — not a BigLaw firm or a multi-office IP shop. I found no AmLaw, Chambers, Vault, or Legal 500 ranking for the firm; any characterization of it as a ranked or "leading" patent practice would be unsupported. Francis is admitted in Kentucky, before the USPTO, the E.D. and W.D. of Kentucky, the E.D. of Texas, and the Sixth and Federal Circuits. Note that his current professional profile lists him as a Partner at Gearhart Law (a New Jersey IP boutique) and previously as Of Counsel at Fowler Bell PLLC and Dentons Bingham Greenebaum, which suggests the practice has been mobile in recent years.

IP litigation specialty. The firm's tracked patent litigation work is concentrated in one technology cluster: short-range wireless and mobile-to-peripheral connectivity — Wi-Fi/Bluetooth pairing, wireless printing, printer-discovery protocols, mobile print applications, and networked digital output. That is drawn directly from the five tracked matters, all involving Flexiworld Technologies' wireless-printing and universal-data-output patent portfolio (U.S. Patents including the '402, '073, '846, '791, '233, '181 and '071 patents). The firm's own marketing describes a broader prosecution practice in chemical, medical-device, software, and mechanical arts, plus trademarks and trade secrets, but the litigation record here is wireless/software-focused. There is no tracked pharma, semiconductor, or mechanical patent litigation.

Side preference — and a caveat on the counts. The data codes all five tracked appearances as plaintiff-side, and in every one the firm acted as local counsel (not lead counsel), with James M. Francis as the sole named attorney. Four are captioned Flexiworld Technologies, Inc. v. Lexmark International, Inc. (consolidated in the E.D. Ky. before Judge Karen K. Caldwell), where Flexiworld — a founder-controlled licensing entity asserting a 15-patent wireless portfolio — sued Lexmark over its wireless printers and mobile print apps. This is functionally NPE/patent-monetization-side work supporting a plaintiff against an operating company. One tracked matter is captioned Lexmark International, Inc. v. Flexiworld Technologies, Inc., which reverses the party order; I could not independently confirm a district-court action under that exact caption (Lexmark's affirmative filings against Flexiworld appear to be PTAB petitions, where captions run petitioner-first). Treat that fifth entry as a probable caption/consolidation artifact rather than evidence of defense-side work. Bottom line: the firm's demonstrated posture is supporting patent-owner plaintiffs as local counsel, not defending operating companies.

Notable matters and outcomes. The Flexiworld–Lexmark dispute is the firm's principal public matter. In its March 20, 2023 Opinion and Order, the E.D. Ky. denied Lexmark's renewed partial motion to dismiss and its alternative request to phase discovery, rejecting Lexmark's § 287(a) marking and issue-preclusion arguments on Flexiworld's pleading — a plaintiff-side win at the pleading stage. The entire dispute then resolved by settlement: on January 16, 2024 the parties entered a patent license agreement, jointly moved to dismiss the consolidated Lexington cases with prejudice, and jointly moved to terminate Lexmark's instituted IPR, which the Board terminated on January 26, 2024. Separately, the firm's principal also received national press (New York Times coverage) for the Kentucky Mist Moonshine / University of Kentucky trademark opposition — a trademark matter, not patent, and worth noting only as a public-profile datapoint, not as patent-litigation experience.

PTAB/IPR practice and key personnel. I found no firm-level IPR, PGR, or CBM filings attributable to Francis Law Firm. In the Flexiworld–Lexmark IPRs (e.g., IPR2023-00845 on the '402 patent; IPR2023-00846 on the '233 patent, instituted November 14, 2023 and terminated as settled), the petitioner-side counsel was Perkins Coie and the patent-owner-side counsel was Nelson Bumgardner Conroy — neither is this firm. Jim Francis's own bio states he has appeared before the PTAB, so individual PTAB experience is plausible but unquantified; the firm should not be pitched as having an IPR practice on the strength of this record. On personnel, there is only one reliably sourced name — James M. Francis, the firm's principal and sole tracked attorney — and I could not verify a 2–4 partner IP litigation bench from the firm's site or industry rankings. Any multi-partner roster would be invention.

Sourcing note: firm/attorney facts are from francis-law.com, Gearhart Law's team page, Martindale/Lawyers.com/Avvo profiles, and Fowler Bell's announcement; case facts are from the E.D. Ky. docket and the March 20, 2023 opinion (5:22-cv-00097-KKC, Doc. 44), USPTO PTAB filings in IPR2023-00845/-00846, and trade press (Actionable Intelligence). No AmLaw/Chambers ranking was located.