Senniger Powers

I'll research the firm before writing.

Important lead on a possible merger — let me verify.

Now let me verify the PTAB case details, rankings, and a few unresolved items.

Senniger Powers LLP — Patent Litigation Practice Summary

Firm overview. Senniger Powers LLP was an intellectual property boutique headquartered at 100 North Broadway, St. Louis, Missouri, founded in 1919. It was a single-office, regionally focused IP shop rather than BigLaw: contemporaneous reporting pegged it at 28 attorneys and 17 partners, and the firm's own materials describe it as Missouri's largest IP firm and one of the largest in the Midwest, with roughly 30 IP lawyers and patent scientists. Martindale lists the office at 25 lawyers; I found no reliable AmLaw or Chambers ranking for the firm itself (Stinson, by contrast, reported $245.4M in 2017 revenue per The American Lawyer). Critically, Senniger Powers merged into Stinson Leonard Street (now Stinson LLP) effective October 1, 2018, with the Senniger attorneys moving to Stinson's Clayton, Missouri office; it no longer operates as an independent firm. All tracked appearances therefore date to roughly 2013–2018.

Technology and litigation specialty. The firm's practice description emphasizes four areas: chemicals, pharmaceuticals/life sciences, mechanical, and electronics/computer systems/software (including semiconductors). That is consistent with the litigation record — the most substantial matters involved silicon-wafer semiconductor processing (MEMC Electronic Materials), network firewall and intrusion-detection patents asserted against banks, and PTAB work for a specialty-chemicals subsidiary (Enthone) and a medical-device patent owner (Masa LLC). The firm also maintained antitrust and complex commercial litigation capacity alongside patent work, which surfaced in its semiconductor matters.

Side preference. The tracked record is an even 4–4 plaintiff/defendant split, and the pattern is better described as operating-company patent defense and declaratory-judgment work rather than NPE prosecution. The plaintiff-side appearances are largely declaratory-judgment actions by regional banks (Compass Bank, Commerce Bancshares) against Intellectual Ventures II; the defendant-side appearances are IV's infringement suits against those same banks, plus defense-side PTAB work. Separately, the firm enforced patents for an operating company (MEMC) as plaintiff in the mid-2000s. The firm does not present as a volume filer for non-practicing entities.

Notable matters. The most prominent tracked matter is the multi-front IV campaign against banks: in IPR2014-00801, Senniger attorneys (Robert M. Evans, Jr., Kyle G. Gottuso, Marc W. Vander Tuig) appeared at the July 2015 oral hearing for petitioner Commerce Bancshares, and the PTAB invalidated claims of IV's firewall patent (U.S. 6,715,084). The Federal Circuit affirmed in Intellectual Ventures II LLC v. Commerce Bancshares, Inc. (Nos. 16-1519, -1520, -1528, March 27, 2017), with Marc Wade Vander Tuig appearing for Commerce Bancshares — a result widely covered as a significant blow to NPE banking litigation. In semiconductors, Evans argued MEMC Electronic Materials, Inc. v. Mitsubishi Materials Silicon America Corp. (Fed. Cir. Aug. 22, 2005), where the Federal Circuit reversed summary judgment on induced infringement, and the firm obtained summary judgment for MEMC dismissing SUMCO's $137 million attempted-monopolization claim under Noerr-Pennington (N.D. Cal. 2007).

PTAB / IPR practice. The firm had a real but modest post-grant practice, not a high-volume IPR operation. Public dockets show it acting on both sides: as petitioner's counsel for Commerce Bancshares in IPR2014-00801, as patent-owner lead counsel for Enthone/BASF in IPR2016-00696 (Vander Tuig), and as patent-owner lead counsel for Masa LLC against Apple in IPR2016-00748 (Evans). I found no public report quantifying the firm's annual petition or institution volume, so any scale figure would be unsupported.

Key partners. The principal figures on the tracked matters are Robert M. Evans, Jr. (litigation practice group leader; argued multiple Federal Circuit appeals), Marc W. Vander Tuig (PTAB lead/backup counsel, later departed in 2018 per a PTAB withdrawal motion), Kyle G. Gottuso, and David W. Harlan (IP, antitrust, and commercial trials; former First Assistant U.S. Attorney for St. Louis). Firm-management names contemporaneous with the litigation period include managing partner Keith A. Rabenberg, chief operating partner Robert M. Bain, and Kurt F. James (managing partner at the time of the Stinson merger; mechanical practice).

Sourcing note: Firm overview and technology descriptions come from Senniger's own media kit and Martindale; the merger from Law.com, the Minneapolis/St. Paul and Wichita Business Journals, and the Star Tribune (August 2018). Case outcomes are drawn from Federal Circuit opinions and PTAB filings/dockets. One tracked entry — Senniger listed as PTAB counsel in IBM v. Intellectual Ventures II — I could not independently confirm in the public papers of IPR2014-00682, where IBM was represented by Kirkland & Ellis and the patent owner by Sterne, Kessler and IV in-house counsel; that appearance should be treated as unverified.