Paynter Law

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

Let me verify the tracked Uniloc v. Electronic Arts case and the firm's IP litigation profile.

Let me check the firm's website practice description and the outcome of the Uniloc v. EA litigation.

Paynter Law — Patent Litigation Practice Summary

Firm overview. Paynter Law is a small, contingency-fee plaintiffs' litigation boutique, not a BigLaw firm or dedicated IP boutique. It was founded in Washington, D.C. in 2005 by Stuart M. Paynter as The Paynter Law Firm, PLLC, and relocated its principal office to Hillsborough, North Carolina in 2015; it also lists offices in Raleigh, N.C. and at 1200 G Street NW, Washington, D.C. Third-party business-directory data (Prospeo) estimates headcount at 1–10 employees and annual revenue under $1 million, but that figure is an estimate, not an audited or ranked measure. The firm does not appear in AmLaw, Chambers, or similar firm rankings, so no reliable size or revenue benchmark exists.

IP litigation specialty. The firm's IP work is generalist commercial IP — copyright, trade secret, right of publicity, and licensing/royalty disputes — rather than a standards-based patent prosecution or patent-trial practice. There is no indication of technical specialization in Wi-Fi/SEP, semiconductors, or pharma. The tracked matter, Uniloc USA, Inc. et al. v. Electronic Arts, Inc., is a software-licensing patent case (Uniloc's patents covered secure distribution and license management of digital content), which is consistent with the firm's documented focus on software, videogames, and entertainment-sector disputes.

Side preference. The firm sits almost exclusively on the plaintiff/claimant side: 1 of 1 tracked appearances is as plaintiff-side counsel, and Paynter has publicly described his practice as concentrated on plaintiff-side contingency litigation. This is a small sample and should not be read as a stable patent-plaintiff practice — the firm's docket is dominated by personal injury, products liability, antitrust/class action, and consumer protection matters, with IP litigation as one component.

Notable cases and outcomes. The tracked patent case is Uniloc USA, Inc. et al. v. Electronic Arts, Inc. (counsel: Stuart M. Paynter). Caveat: in the Uniloc–EA dockets I could review (E.D. Tex. Nos. 6:12-cv-00463 and 6:15-cv-1009), publicly indexed filings surface Uniloc's own in-house counsel and the Etheridge Law Group, plus defense firms; I could not independently confirm Paynter Law's appearance in that docket from public records, so the appearance rests on the case list provided rather than a verified court filing. The firm's better-documented Electronic Arts matters are Antonick v. Electronic Arts (Madden NFL royalty/copyright dispute, N.D. Cal.), where Paynter served as trial counsel through two jury trials and Ninth Circuit argument, and the NCAA student-athlete name/image/likeness case against EA and the NCAA, which produced a $60 million settlement with Paynter as court-appointed lead counsel. The firm also reports a confidential $21.5 million trade-secret settlement against a Fortune 500 company and a $27 million Pecover v. Electronic Arts antitrust settlement; its largest reported result, a $383.5 million DaVita verdict (D. Colo. 2018), is a wrongful-death/medical malpractice matter, not IP.

PTAB / IPR practice. There is no evidence Paynter Law maintains an IPR/PGR filing or defense practice, and no public report supports any PTAB volume. Uniloc's patents were subject to substantial PTAB activity — for example, Distinctive Developments, Ltd., Electronic Arts Inc. et al. v. Uniloc (IPR2013-00391) resulted in a final written decision holding most challenged claims of U.S. Patent 6,857,067 unpatentable — but that proceeding was prosecuted by Uniloc's regular patent counsel, not by Paynter Law. The firm should be treated as having no meaningful PTAB capability on the record available.

Key practice leaders. Stuart M. Paynter (Stanford J.D.; Cornell B.A.; former clerk to Judge David S. Tatel, D.C. Cir.; ex-Sullivan & Cromwell, where he worked on the Microsoft antitrust litigation) is the founder and the only attorney tied to the tracked appearance; he is listed as a North Carolina Super Lawyer 2023–2025 and a D.C. Super Lawyer 2019–2020. Jennifer L. Murray appears in firm filings and directory listings as a Washington, D.C.-based attorney handling antitrust, intellectual property, and consumer protection matters. No additional IP litigation partners could be verified from the firm's public materials, which is unsurprising given the firm's small headcount.