Our runners up for Litigator of the Week include Hogan Lovells (newly-elevated) counsel Tom Schmidt and associate Mitchell Reich for their work on two different cases.
Schmidt and partner Neal Katyal won a major patent appeal for Google in the Federal Circuit. Katyal, who had a looming Supreme Court argument, backed Schmidt (then an associate) to handle Google’s mandamus appeal—and the client agreed. Their faith was well-placed. Schmidt convinced the appellate court that Google could not be subjected to suit in the Eastern District of Texas based on computer servers it owns there. The decision stands to set the legal framework governing venue in many patent cases going forward.
