At Willenken, we have always maintained that the best marketing we can do is getting a good result for our existing clients.
Apparently, clients of other firms against whom we have been adverse feel the same way. When the CEO of a company whom we had sued in the past was served with a patent infringement lawsuit in the District of Colorado, he didn’t bother calling his existing lawyer. He called the lawyers who had cross-examined him at a previous trial: us.
Soon after the firm was retained to defend the Colorado action, the plaintiff initiated a second action: a section 337 investigation before the International Trade Commission (ITC). Plaintiffs often have a significant advantage in section 337 investigations because they can prepare their discovery and pleadings ahead of time and then issue them as soon as the matter is opened. Defendants, on the other hand, are typically so busy trying to respond under the very tight deadlines often imposed by the administrative law judges in those proceedings that they have little time to get their own “ducks in a row.”
Once the section 337 investigation commenced, the Willenken team immediately moved to stay the patent action so that it could focus its efforts on defending the ITC action. Cognizant of the tight deadlines, the firm moved quickly to prepare its responsive pleadings, secure documents and information necessary for responding to discovery, and propounded its own discovery. While other co-defendants needed to obtain extensions to respond to various deadlines, the Willenken team was ready to move just as quickly as the plaintiff to show that the plaintiff would not be dictating the pace of the matter.
After several months of rapid fire litigation, the Willenken team was able to obtain a very favorable global settlement of both the patent action in Colorado and the ITC investigation. Based on this favorable result, the firm’s client asked to enter into a retainer agreement with the firm so that it could serve as their litigation counsel for all future matters as well.
