Harrigan Leyh Farmer & Thomsen

I'll research this firm before drafting.

Let me dig into the specific cases and the firm's IP practice.

Harrigan Leyh Farmer & Thomsen LLP — Patent Litigation Practice Summary

Firm overview. Harrigan Leyh Farmer & Thomsen LLP (HLFT) was a Seattle litigation boutique headquartered at 999 Third Avenue, Seattle, Washington, with no other offices. Founded in 1986, it was a regional complex-litigation trial shop of roughly a dozen lawyers — not BigLaw, and not an IP boutique. No firm-level Am Law or Chambers ranking is verifiable. Important: the standalone firm no longer exists. On April 1, 2024, HLFT combined with Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner (BCLP, an Am Law 100 firm), and its 12-lawyer group — including Timothy Leyh, Tyler Farmer, Randall Thomsen, Shane Cramer, Ariel Martinez and of counsel Bill Beaver, Michelle Buhler and Charles Jordan — joined BCLP's Seattle office, with Farmer serving as co-managing partner. Any continuing patent work attributed to "Harrigan Leyh" now sits inside BCLP.

IP litigation specialty. The firm's own website description is candid: "We don't call ourselves 'IP lawyers,'" notwithstanding patent trial work — IP was an outgrowth of a general commercial and trial practice, not a dedicated patent department. Documented technology areas include network/wireless printing and mobile-device software (Flexiworld), enterprise data, search and CRM software (IBM v. Zillow), semiconductor/RFID (NXP v. Impinj), and Wi-Fi 802.11 standard-essential-patent/RAND issues (Microsoft v. Motorola, discussed below). The broader practice is class actions, mass torts, product liability, public-entity and constitutional litigation, and maritime/admiralty — that mix, not patents, defined the firm.

Side preference. All four tracked appearances are plaintiff-side, and all four are the same client and matter: Flexiworld Technologies, Inc. v. Amazon.com, Inc. et al. (W.D. Wash. 2:21-cv-01055, Judge Estudillo), where HLFT acted as Washington local counsel to Flexiworld, a patent-holding licensor asserting network-printing patents against Amazon's Fire tablets. Claim construction issued in March 2024; the case terminated in July 2025 with no public verdict or published damages figure, and I found no verified settlement terms. The firm also appeared for Flexiworld in an ancillary 2025 subpoena proceeding (2:25-mc-00018), dismissed without prejudice in April 2025 after non-party Mopria Alliance moved to quash. The pattern is out-of-state-plaintiff support in a patent assertion campaign against printer and device makers (Flexiworld also sued Hisense, Sony, and was opposed by Roku in IPRs) — not operating-company defense work. The one notable counterexample: in IBM v. Zillow, HLFT's counsel represented IBM, a large operating company asserting patents. So: plaintiff-side, but not exclusively NPE-side.

Notable matters and outcomes. BCLP's combination announcement credits HLFT with "successfully handling a $2 billion, first-of-its-kind patent case between two of the world's largest technology companies." Filings in Microsoft Corp. v. Motorola, Inc. (W.D. Wash. 2:10-cv-01823, Judge Robart), the 802.11/H.264 standard-essential-patent RAND bench trial, bear the predecessor firm name (Calfo Harrigan Leyh & Eakes), which is consistent with — but does not independently confirm — the firm's characterization. In International Business Machines Corp. v. Zillow Group, Inc. (W.D. Wash.), Arthur W. Harrigan, Jr. appeared for IBM; on March 9, 2022 the court granted Zillow's motion to dismiss, invalidating three IBM patents under Alice and leaving a fourth stayed pending IPR — an adverse outcome for the firm's client. HLFT also appeared as local counsel in NXP USA Inc. v. Impinj Inc. (W.D. Wash. 2:20-cv-01503), a multi-patent semiconductor/RFID case tried to a jury in June 2023, alongside Perkins Coie. Uniloc USA, Inc. v. Cisco Systems, Inc. (W.D. Wash. 2:17-cv-00527) was dismissed with prejudice by stipulation in January 2024.

PTAB / IPR practice and key counsel. There is no publicly reported PTAB practice. I found no IPR or PGR filings naming HLFT as petitioner or patent-owner counsel, and no public report of PTAB volume. Flexiworld-related IPRs (e.g., Roku's IPR2022-01112, -01113, -01114) were terminated before institution on settlement, with no indication HLFT handled them. The relevant lawyers are Arthur W. Harrigan, Jr. (name partner; most consistently on the patent docket, appearing in IBM v. Zillow and Flexiworld, roughly 3–4 tracked appearances) and Tyler L. Farmer (the firm's tech/IP litigator, now BCLP Seattle co-managing partner; Chambers USA and Best Lawyers noted per BCLP's announcement). Bryn Resser Pallesen appeared on tracked matters but left the firm in September 2022 and is now at Orrick; Chelsey Lyn Mam was an associate on the Flexiworld and Uniloc filings. Name partner Timothy G. Leyh handles mass torts, class actions and public-entity work, not patents.

Sourcing note: firm size, combination terms and lawyer roster are from BCLP's April 2024 announcement and reporting by The American Lawyer, Bloomberg Law, Law360 and Global Legal Post; case facts and outcomes are from CourtListener/PACER dockets, the March 2022 IBM v. Zillow decision as summarized in IP Law Daily, and PTAB termination decisions. The characterization of the "$2 billion" patent case as Microsoft v. Motorola is my inference from docket appearances and is flagged as unverified. Where I could not confirm a fact — settlement terms, verdicts, rankings — I have said so rather than estimate.