Gray Cary Ware & Freidenrich

I'll research this firm before drafting, since the name suggests a historical entity.

Key finding: this is a legacy firm. Let me verify the merger timeline, the tracked case, and the named attorneys.

Now let me verify the firm's size, structure, and the two named attorneys' roles there.

Gray Cary Ware & Freidenrich LLP — Patent Litigation Practice Summary

Note on status: Gray Cary no longer exists as an independent firm. It merged with Piper Rudnick and UK-based DLA effective January 2005 to form DLA Piper Rudnick Gray Cary (shortened to DLA Piper in 2006). DLA Piper today describes Gray Cary as "one of the original Silicon Valley law firms" and a predecessor of its technology practice. Everything below is therefore a historical snapshot, and the tracked dataset (one appearance) is thin.

Firm overview. A California-based, full-service business firm — not an IP boutique — with principal offices in Palo Alto (Silicon Valley) and San Diego, plus an Austin, Texas office. Contemporaneous reporting put it at roughly 380 lawyers at the time of the merger (San Francisco Business Times, Dec. 2004) and "more than 450 attorneys" in 2001 (Austin Business Journal); Palo Alto partners represented about 40% of the firm. I could not verify a Gray Cary–specific AmLaw or Chambers band — sources confirm only that it was a Palo Alto/San Diego–based firm of several hundred lawyers, and that the combined 2005 entity was, by headcount, among the world's three largest firms.

IP litigation specialty. Its practice identity was Silicon Valley technology: patent litigation over computer and printing hardware and semiconductor components, ITC Section 337 import enforcement, and trade secret / employee-mobility disputes. The firm invested in the group deliberately — hiring former U.S. magistrate Alan Albright in 2001 to build an Austin IP litigation practice alongside Jim Cannon. There is nothing in the tracked data suggesting pharma/Hatch-Waxman, SEP/FRAND, or Wi-Fi standards work; the one tracked matter is electro-mechanical printing hardware.

Side preference. On tracked data the firm is 1-for-1 on the plaintiff side and 0 on the defense side. The single tracked matter has Hewlett-Packard as plaintiff/complainant against a cartridge manufacturer — i.e., patent enforcement for a large operating company, not NPE/PAE assertion. That is the only side conclusion the data supports. It should be read with caution: one case is not a measure of a 380-lawyer firm's mix, and 2004 lateral reports (Winston & Strawn taking two Palo Alto litigation partners) indicate a broader commercial and defense-side litigation practice the dataset does not capture.

Notable case. Hewlett-Packard Co. v. Microjet Technology Co., Ltd. et al., ITC Inv. No. 337-TA-463 ("Certain Ink Jet Print Cartridges and Components Thereof"), complaint filed 2001 asserting six HP patents (including 4,635,073; 4,827,294; 4,680,859; 4,872,027; 4,992,802; 5,409,134). The ALJ issued a final initial determination on January 25, 2002; the Commission reversed-in-part, found infringement of claim 4 of the '073 patent, found a Section 337 violation, and issued a limited exclusion order against Microjet with cease-and-desist orders against two resellers. Gray Cary attorneys Richard T. Mulloy and James Pooley appear on the ITC filings; John Allcock (San Diego) is the tracked lead counsel and is quoted in trade press defending the ITC strategy over district court. A later related investigation (Inv. No. 337-TA-723, 2010–11) again resulted in exclusion relief for HP, but that matter post-dates Gray Cary.

PTAB/IPR and key partners. The firm had no IPR/PGR practice — it dissolved in January 2005, and AIA trial proceedings did not begin until September 2012. Where "Gray Cary" names appear in modern PTAB records, they are historical district-court docket sheets reproduced as exhibits in later IPRs, not Gray Cary filings; any post-2012 PTAB work is successor-firm work. Notable IP lawyers associated with the firm: John Allcock (patent litigation, San Diego; lead counsel on the tracked case), Richard T. Mulloy (San Diego; HP's ITC counsel of record), James Pooley (Palo Alto; trade secret and patent trial lawyer, credited with the 1997 Adobe software-patent defense verdict, later WIPO Deputy Director General 2009–2014 and a 2016 IP Hall of Fame inductee — his Gray Cary tenure is supported by the ITC service list and secondary bios rather than a firm-published profile), and Alan Albright (hired 2001 to build IP litigation in Austin; now a U.S. district judge in the Western District of Texas).