Jason A. Crotty

Partner

San Francisco, (415) 268-6381

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Education

California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo (B.A., 1993)
;
University of Michigan Law School (J.D., 1997)

Practices

Litigation

Intellectual Property Litigation

Patent Litigation

Bar Admissions

California

Clerkships

Hon. William B. Shubb, U.S. District Court, E.D. California (1997-1998)

Jason Crotty's practice focuses on patent infringement cases, particularly complex or multi-defendant cases for high technology clients. He has handled cases in a variety of technologies, including television set-top boxes such as DVRs, interactive phone systems, pharmacueticals, and engineered antibodies. He has represented both plaintiffs and defendants in patent cases and clients include EchoStar/Dish Network, Celltech Ltd., Chiron Corporation, Novartis, Kaiser Permanente, and AOL.

Mr. Crotty recently represented several clients in multidistrict litigation involving patents directed to interactive phone systems owned by Ronald A. Katz Technology Licensing LP. Those cases have been consolidated for pretrial proceedings in the Central District of California.

Mr. Crotty also has considerable experience litigating in the Eastern District of Texas, including as part of a team that obtained a trial victory on invalidity in Tyler. After the jury promptly found the patents invalid on numerous grounds, the plaintiff elected not to appeal to the Federal Circuit.

Forgent Networks, Inc v. Echostar Communications Corporation, et al.

(Eastern District of Texas). Obtained defense jury verdict for EchoStar in patent lawsuit brought by Forgent against essentially the entire cable and satellite television industry, including EchoStar, DIRECTV, Comcast, Cable One, Time Warner, Charter, and Cox, as well as Motorola, Digeo, and Scientific-Atlanta, in Tyler, Texas. The case involved patents allegedly directed to DVRs. Forgent alleged that it invented the DVR in 1991 . All defendants other than EchoStar settled shortly before trial, leaving EchoStar as the sole defendant. In May 2007, after approximately an hour of deliberations, an eight-person jury found all of the asserted claims invalid as anticipated, obvious, and lacking an adequate written description. EchoStar did not contest infringement at trial and argued only invalidity. We believe this is only the second defense jury verdict in a patent case in the Eastern District of Texas.

Acacia Media Technologies Corp. v. Comcast Corp., et al.

(Northern District of California). Represented EchoStar, the owner of the DISH Network, in a closely-watched patent infringement case involving a number of patents purportedly relating to digital media transmission. EchoStar was one of multiple defendants in this multi-district patent infringement action involving distributed audio/video information and whether major U.S. satellite and cable television providers infringe Acacia patents on video-on-demand (streaming video) technology. We assumed a leadership position in developing the defenses against these patents, which, if afforded the broad construction assigned to them by the patentees, could have far-reaching effects on numerous forms of digital transmission used in many different industries. After multiple rounds of claim construction proceedings, defendants prevailed on summary judgment of non-infringement and invalidity of all patents, which was affirmed by the Federal Circuit in 2010.