McArthur Law Firm

I'll research the firm and its tracked cases before writing the summary.

McArthur Law Firm — Patent Litigation Practice Summary

Firm overview. The McArthur Law Firm, P.C. is a Los Angeles-area intellectual property boutique (records show addresses at 11400 W. Olympic Blvd., Los Angeles, and 8383 Wilshire Blvd., Beverly Hills), founded in 2007 by Stephen McArthur. The firm describes itself as a boutique serving "companies in the digital community"—software companies, app developers, video game and entertainment companies—and markets itself as offering specialized IP expertise "at a lower price than megafirms." No Am Law 100/200, Chambers USA, or comparable ranking for the firm was located in available sources; treat any size characterization beyond "small IP boutique" as unverified.

IP litigation specialty. The firm's own practice description emphasizes trademark and copyright registration, enforcement, and brand protection for software, app, and video game clients, with patent work present but secondary in its public marketing. The two tracked patent matters are both software/computer-implemented networking cases: Trinity Info Media's assertion of poll-based online-dating matching patents (U.S. Patents 9,087,321 and 10,936,685) in the Central District of California. Thomas Dietrich's Martindale profile lists practice areas in electrical, mechanical, and computer science litigation, and his background includes defending patent suits for Experian—so the firm's patent litigation exposure skews toward software/electrical and consumer-technology defendants rather than pharma, semiconductors, or standard-setting (e.g., Wi-Fi) work.

Side preference. The tracked record is exclusively defense-side: 2 of 2 appearances as defendant, both as lead counsel (Thomas Dietrich). There is no tracked plaintiff-side patent assertion work for the firm. That said, the firm is not purely a defense shop in the broader IP sense—it files trademark oppositions and cancellations (e.g., Thrive Natural Care before the TTAB) and pursues enforcement on behalf of brand owners, so it operates on both sides of IP disputes generally while functioning as a defense firm in patent litigation.

Notable cases and outcomes. The firm's most prominent tracked patent matter is Trinity Info Media, LLC v. Covalent, Inc. (C.D. Cal. No. 2:21-cv-01360). McArthur and Dietrich represented Covalent, secured a Rule 12(b)(6) dismissal invalidating the asserted claims under 35 U.S.C. § 101, and then successfully defended that judgment on appeal—Dietrich argued for the appellee, and the Federal Circuit affirmed on July 14, 2023 (Trinity Info Media, LLC v. Covalent, Inc., No. 2022-1308), holding the claims directed to the abstract idea of "matching based on questioning" with no inventive concept. The companion case, Trinity Info Media, LLC v. Hornet Networks, Inc. (C.D. Cal. No. 2:21-cv-01351), ended in a joint stipulation of voluntary dismissal in September 2021; terms were not publicly disclosed, and no settlement amount is verifiable.

PTAB / IPR practice. No IPR, PGR, or other PTAB patent filings by the firm appear in the tracked case list, and no public report establishes an institutional PTAB practice or filing volume. The only PTAB-related claims are self-reported on the firm's site: Dietrich states that, while at a prior firm, he drafted petitions that led the PTAB to invalidate two patents-in-suit for a Fortune 500 client, and of counsel Sean Lynch (a patent prosecutor) has written in Law360 about invalidating a patent through an IPR. These are individual-attorney experience indicators, not evidence of a firm-level IPR practice at scale.

Key personnel. Stephen McArthur (founding/managing attorney; formerly Cravath and Irell & Manella; Columbia Law) leads the firm and its trademark/copyright and video game practice. Thomas Dietrich (senior litigation attorney; formerly Crowell & Moring and BakerHostetler; UC Hastings) is the firm's lead patent litigator and the courtroom advocate in the Federal Circuit Trinity/Covalent appeal. Sean Lynch (of counsel) provides patent prosecution and IPR experience. Zachary Strebeck (of counsel) appears in firm IP enforcement matters. The attorney roster is small; the firm's patent litigation capability is effectively concentrated in Dietrich.

Note on sourcing: the case facts above are drawn from federal dockets, the Federal Circuit opinion, and contemporaneous legal-press coverage; firm-size, ranking, and PTAB-volume statements are limited to what the firm's own site and third-party profiles state, and unverified figures have been flagged rather than asserted.