Jackson Kelly

Firm overview. Jackson Kelly PLLC is a full-service regional firm headquartered in Charleston, West Virginia, tracing its origins to 1822. It is among the largest firms in West Virginia — roughly 149 attorneys and 76 partners per the 2025 NLJ 500 (ranked No. 278) — with offices in West Virginia, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Ohio, Colorado, and Washington, D.C. It is not an AmLaw 200 firm or an IP boutique; its Chambers USA rankings are concentrated in banking & finance, healthcare, labor & employment, public finance, energy/natural resources, environment, and general commercial litigation, and U.S. News–Best Lawyers ranks it nationally in mining and natural resources law.

IP litigation specialty. The firm's Intellectual Property & Licensing group spans trademark and copyright enforcement, licensing, TTAB proceedings, and patent prosecution/litigation, with attorneys recognized by Best Lawyers and World IP Review. The tracked litigation appearances are all in pharmaceutical/biologic patent disputes: both matters arise out of Regeneron's enforcement of its Eylea (aflibercept) formulation patents against biosimilar applicants in the Northern District of West Virginia, part of the consolidated In re Aflibercept Patent Litigation (MDL No. 3103). Jackson Kelly's role in both cases is supporting — of counsel in Regeneron v. Mylan Pharmaceuticals and local counsel in Regeneron v. Samsung Bioepis Co., Ltd. — with Frank E. Simmerman, Jr. as the attorney of record, consistent with a regional Hatch-Waxman/BPCIA presence in the West Virginia forum rather than a national lead-litigation practice.

Side preference. Tracked appearances are uniformly plaintiff-side (2 plaintiff, 0 defendant), both for innovator pharma Regeneron asserting patents against biosimilar filers. That said, the roles are of counsel/local counsel, and the firm's own description of its commercial litigation practice — which includes IP disputes — is that it handles both plaintiff and defense work. The small tracked sample is better read as reflecting forum-based support work for lead counsel (Williams & Connolly represented Regeneron) than as evidence of a plaintiff-only orientation.

Notable cases and outcomes. The two tracked matters are Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc. v. Mylan Pharmaceuticals Inc. and Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc. v. Samsung Bioepis Co., Ltd., both consolidated in the aflibercept MDL in the Northern District of West Virginia. On January 29, 2025, the Federal Circuit (Nos. 24-1965, -1966, -2082, -2083) affirmed the district court's preliminary injunctions barring Samsung Bioepis and other biosimilar applicants from launching Eylea biosimilars, rejecting challenges to personal jurisdiction and obviousness-type double patenting of U.S. Patent No. 11,084,865. The firm's role in these headline BPCIA rulings was ancillary (local/of counsel), not lead.

PTAB / IPR practice and key people. No notable IPR/PGR filing or defense practice was identified in public sources; the firm's IP group emphasizes prosecution, trademarks, copyright, and licensing, and no PTAB volume data is available. Key IP practitioners: Frank E. Simmerman, Jr. is the attorney on both tracked matters; Joshua Claybourn is identified as leading the IP and licensing practice group (per his published attorney profile); David A. Barnette is listed in IP and technology transactions litigation (Super Lawyers); and Ryan Aaron joined the Charleston office in 2024 with patent-prosecution and IP litigation experience (firm announcement). None of these attorneys appear in Chambers USA's IP rankings, which the firm does not currently hold.