Patterson Law Group

I'll verify this firm's profile before writing.

Let me pin down the correct entity and its practice profile.

Patterson Law Group — scope note first: the case list and the attorney match (Allison H. Goddard) point to Patterson Law Group, APC of San Diego, California, a small regional plaintiffs' firm — not Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler (New York), Patterson Intellectual Property Law (Nashville), or The Patterson Law Firm, LLC (Chicago). Those three are frequently confused with it in search results and are unrelated.

Firm overview. Patterson Law Group, APC is a San Diego firm located at 402 West Broadway (Suite 1950) / 1350 Columbia Street, San Diego, CA 92101. It is a boutique/regional plaintiffs' practice, not a BigLaw firm or a dedicated IP boutique; its core identity is consumer and employment class action work, with patent litigation as an ancillary specialty. Founder James R. Patterson (admitted 2000; USD School of Law) has been selected to Super Lawyers every year since 2012, and the firm's own marketing describes lead or co-lead roles in more than 35 certified state and federal class actions. I found no AmLaw, Chambers, or Vault ranking for this firm, and no reliable public attorney-count or revenue figure — treat any size characterization as approximate. Its IP work is best evidenced at the individual-lawyer level rather than as an institutional practice group.

IP litigation specialty and side preference. The firm's patent work runs through Allison H. Goddard, who was Of Counsel at Patterson Law Group from 2011 until her 2019 appointment as a U.S. Magistrate Judge for the Southern District of California. Before joining, she spent a decade on the defense side doing complex litigation at Cooley LLP and Jaczko Goddard LLP (notably representing DR Systems against Eastman Kodak's counterclaims, S.D. Cal. No. 08-cv-00669) and at Patterson shifted toward plaintiff-side representation of patent holders, plus continued defense-side work (e.g., for Cambridge Research & Instrumentation in AntiCancer, Inc. v. Cambridge Research & Instrumentation, S.D. Cal. No. 07-cv-0097). So the firm's patent docket is genuinely mixed rather than NPE- or operating-company-identified. That tracks the tracked-appearance data exactly: 1 appearance, 100% plaintiff side, 0 defendant side, 1 lead-counsel role — a single-data-point profile that should not be read as an NPE/PAE prosecution shop. Technology exposure in the record is software/imaging (DR Systems, AntiCancer), consumer electronics and standards-adjacent wireless, and general mechanical/electrical subject matter, not pharma or semiconductors.

Notable cases and outcomes. The entry in the case list is untitled, so I can't confirm identity, but the docket facts line up with Apple Inc. v. Wi-LAN Inc., S.D. Cal. Nos. 3:14-cv-02235 and 3:14-cv-01507 (consolidated). Patterson Law Group attorneys (James R. Patterson and Jennifer M. French) appeared for Wi-LAN alongside McKool Smith, and Goddard's signature appears on Wi-LAN filings in that consolidated action — consistent with a plaintiff-side, lead-counsel role for a patent-asserting client against Apple. The case resolved by joint stipulation of dismissal filed April 11, 2022: Wi-LAN's claims and counterclaims dismissed with prejudice, Apple's without prejudice, each side bearing its own fees and costs. No verdict or Federal Circuit decision resulted. I found no reported patent verdict, judgment, or appellate win attributable to Patterson Law Group, APC as a firm.

PTAB / IPR practice. No evidence found. I located no IPR, PGR, or CBM filings by this firm, no PTAB practitioner registration tied to it, and no public report quantifying a post-grant practice. On the available record, this firm does not have an IPR/PGR filing or defense practice of note. (The substantial ITC and IPR track record you'll see in search results — Wirtgen, Caterpillar, Colas — belongs to Patterson Intellectual Property Law in Nashville and should not be attributed here.)

Key personnel. Relevant names, all sourced from court filings or directory profiles rather than a vendor ranking: Allison H. Goddard — the firm's patent litigator of record and its only tracked appearance; since August 2019 a U.S. Magistrate Judge in the Southern District of California, so no longer available as counsel. James R. Patterson — founder/member, the firm's public face, whose listed areas include intellectual property and civil litigation alongside class actions. Jennifer M. French — appeared with Patterson on the Wi-LAN matter. Following Goddard's elevation to the bench, I found no current attorney at the firm publicly identified as an IP litigation practice leader; anyone needing that today should verify directly with the firm, as its current website emphasizes consumer and employment work.

Bottom line. This is a small San Diego plaintiffs' shop whose patent capability was carried largely by one lawyer who has since joined the federal bench. The single plaintiff-side tracked appearance is real but isolated, and the absence of any AmLaw/Chambers ranking, PTAB activity, or verifiable patent trial outcome means the practice should be characterized as incidental to a consumer/employment litigation practice rather than as a standing patent litigation group.