Patterson + Sheridan

I'll research the firm before drafting.

Firm overview. Patterson + Sheridan LLP is an intellectual property boutique headquartered at 24 Greenway Plaza, Houston, Texas. Founded in 1996 by B. Todd Patterson (the firm marks its 30th anniversary in 2026), it operates roughly seven to eight U.S. offices — Houston (HQ), Dallas and Waco, Texas; Silicon Valley/San Jose and Orange County, California; Greensboro, North Carolina; Shrewsbury, New Jersey; and Huntsville, Alabama — plus an international office in Yokohama, Japan. U.S. News and Vault both put the firm at roughly 80 lawyers, with the firm itself describing 80+ attorneys, agents and technical advisors; its own 2017 releases cited ~72 attorneys. It is an IP boutique, not BigLaw — I found no AmLaw 100/200 or Chambers firm ranking. Its independently verifiable recognitions are Best Lawyers/Best Law Firms (national ranking plus Houston and Dallas/Fort Worth regional tiers, including Tier 1 Houston Patent Law and a newly added Litigation–Patent recognition in the 2026 edition), a 2018 Juristat Top 100 Patent Firms ranking (No. 15), and a Houston Business Journal listing as the largest IP firm in Houston.

IP litigation specialty. The practice is anchored in prosecution-heavy technical disciplines, and its litigation work tracks the same client base: electronics and semiconductors, communications, complex software and IT, financial technology/business methods, medical devices, industrial and mechanical products (including oil-and-gas services and industrial filtration), chemicals, clean technology, and biotech/pharma. Public-facing litigation examples skew toward software/commerce systems and energy-related industrial technology rather than Wi-Fi standards or Hatch-Waxman pharma. The firm built out a formal trial section in 2008 when veteran IP trial lawyer Jerry R. Selinger joined from Morgan Lewis to lead it, coinciding with the opening of the Dallas office.

Side preference. On the tracked data, the firm's single recorded appearance is plaintiff-side, with Todd Patterson as lead counsel (note: the structured list carries two attorney entries for the same person — "Todd Patterson" and "B. Todd Patterson" — and the case itself is untitled, so the firm's litigation record here is thin). Publicly verifiable litigation history is mixed: the firm has represented patent owners asserting patents (CloudofChange), defended patent owners in PTAB challenges, and also acted for petitioners. Third-party litigation databases (LexDana, not a court record) estimate roughly 52% defendant-side and 19% plaintiff-side representation across ~86 tracked litigation matters — treat that as an unverified aggregate, not a firm-confirmed posture.

Notable cases. The most prominent publicly verifiable matter is CloudofChange, LLC v. NCR Corp. (W.D. Tex., Judge Albright, No. W-19-cv-00513-ADA), in which CloudofChange won a $13.2 million jury verdict on two web-based point-of-sale patents. The Federal Circuit reversed the denial of JMOL and vacated the verdict on December 18, 2024 (No. 23-1111, 123 F.4th 1333), holding NCR neither "used" the claimed system nor vicariously directed its merchant-customers' use; rehearing en banc was denied February 19, 2025, and a cert petition (No. 24-1058) was filed in April 2025. The firm's own case study describes defending an industrial filtration client's patent against two competitor IPRs in which the Board declined institution on all 19 asserted grounds — the firm characterizes non-institution as "a relative rarity," which is directionally consistent with PTAB statistics.

PTAB/IPR practice. The firm describes post-grant proceedings as a core service. Verified filings and appearances include IPR2022-00997 (Lightspeed Commerce v. CloudofChange), where Todd Patterson filed a Request for Director Review on behalf of the patent owner; IPR2023-00287 (Clover Network v. CloudofChange, patent-owner side); and IPR2021-01539 (Halliburton Energy Services v. U.S. Well Services), with B. Todd Patterson listed as counsel. I could not locate a reliable public report quantifying the firm's annual IPR/PGR volume; third-party docket aggregators suggest dozens of PTAB appearances, but that figure is not independently confirmed.

Key partners. B. Todd Patterson (managing partner and firm co-founder; USPTO Reg. No. 37,906; Best Lawyers since 2013, Houston "Lawyer of the Year" – Patent Law 2021; Managing IP IP Stars "Patent Star" 2022) is the clear litigation and PTAB anchor. Also consistently appearing in filed litigation and PTAB papers are Jayme Partridge, Keith Taboada, and John A. Yates; Brooks Tueting was elevated to partner in Houston (2020). Partner biographies, current headcounts and any Chambers/AmLaw rankings could not be verified beyond the sources above, so those figures should be re-checked against the firm site before publication.