Olson & Cepuritis

I'll research this firm and its tracked case before drafting.

Now let me research the tracked case and the firm's litigation track record.

Let me verify the firm's PTAB footprint, size, and attorney roster.

Olson & Cepuritis, Ltd. — Patent Litigation Practice Summary

Firm overview. Olson & Cepuritis, Ltd. is a small intellectual-property boutique founded in 1986 and headquartered at 20 North Wacker Drive, Chicago. Directory listings (Martindale) show a single Chicago office with an office size of roughly 10 people; no additional U.S. or foreign offices are evident. The firm is not an AmLaw 200 or AmLaw-ranked firm, and I found no Chambers ranking for it — it is best characterized as a regional Midwest IP boutique, not BigLaw. Its own site describes it as "a cost-effective legal service firm for Intellectual Property Protection and Defense," and notes a largely prosecution-plus-litigation model rather than high-volume district court trial work.

IP litigation specialty. The firm's stated practice spans patents, trademarks, copyrights, trade secrets, unfair competition, advertising, licensing, opinions, and interference/appeal work, plus FDA regulatory counseling. On the technology side, its self-described strengths are mechanical and process engineering (machine tools, complex machinery, automation, process equipment), materials/metallurgy, medical devices and medical equipment, consumer and industrial electronics, computer engineering, software and business processes, plus chemistry, biotechnology, and pharmaceuticals. The tracked litigation and PTAB record is consistent with that profile: the flagship dispute is sail-structure/composite-textile technology, and other matters involve conveyor systems, mechanical equipment, and university/research-institution patents — not semiconductors, Wi-Fi/SEP standards, or life-sciences Hatch-Waxman litigation.

Side preference. The structured data shows just one tracked district court appearance, on the plaintiff side (1 plaintiff / 0 defendant), with two Lead Counsel role entries. That is too thin a sample to characterize the firm as a plaintiff's-side or NPE-focused shop. The broader public record suggests the firm more often appears on the patent-owner/defense side in PTAB proceedings — it has represented patent owners such as Laitram, L.L.C. and UChicago Argonne, LLC. It does not present as a contingency-driven PAE/NPE filer; its clients appear to be operating companies and research institutions.

Notable cases and outcomes. The tracked case, North Sails Group, LLC et al. v. Team New Zealand Ltd (E.D. Va., No. 1:26-cv-03061, filed Sept. 15, 2026), is an inventorship/non-infringement action arising from the America's Cup sail dispute; North Sails seeks recognition of its designer as inventor or co-inventor of U.S. Patent No. 12,110,089 ("Sail structure") and has publicly framed the case as a response to enforcement threats. Arne M. Olson is lead counsel. Relatedly, Olson & Cepuritis was petitioner's counsel in PGR2025-00062, North Sails Group, LLC v. Team New Zealand Limited, filed July 3, 2025; institution was denied on January 9, 2026 and the case terminated. The firm also defended Laitram in IPR2020-00593/-00594 (Ashworth Bros., Inc. v. Laitram, L.L.C.), involving conveyor-belt patents; the Federal Circuit affirmed in part and vacated/remanded, and on remand the remaining asserted claim was ultimately held unpatentable — an adverse outcome for the firm's client. Olson & Cepuritis withdrew from that representation in 2023, with Erise IP substituting in. I could not verify any district court verdicts or public settlements obtained by the firm.

PTAB / IPR practice. The firm maintains an active PTAB practice, though it is modest in scale and appears concentrated on the patent-owner side. Beyond PGR2025-00062, public filings show it as patent-owner counsel in the Laitram IPRs (2020) and in an earlier UChicago Argonne, LLC proceeding (2015). The firm's own materials also reference a traditional patent interference practice, and USPTO records list it as correspondence counsel in numerous trademark proceedings. I found no public report quantifying its IPR/PGR filing volume, so no reliable scale figure can be given.

Key practice leaders. Arne M. Olson is the founding principal and the firm's most visible patent litigator — lead counsel on the North Sails matter, lead counsel in the Laitram IPRs, registered practitioner No. 30,203, and repeatedly listed in Super Lawyers for intellectual property litigation in Chicago. Robert J. Ross is the other Lead Counsel identified in the tracked case and has served as backup counsel in PTAB matters. Anita M. Cepuritis handles patent and patent-litigation matters and has appeared in PTAB proceedings, and Shawn E. Duckworth served as backup counsel on the Laitram IPRs. Other attorneys listed at the firm include Kathleen A. Lyons and Michael D. Zaronias.

Sourcing note: Firm size posture, office footprint, and attorney names come from the firm's website and Martindale/Super Lawyers directory listings; case and PTAB details come from PTAB filings and docket aggregators and from trade-press coverage of the America's Cup dispute. No AmLaw, Chambers, or Vault ranking for this firm was located, and the single tracked district court appearance limits any broader inference about the firm's litigation volume.