Drew Woodmansee is Head of the Litigation Practice Group in the Firm's San Diego office.
He represents plaintiffs and defendants in patent infringement matters in federal courts throughout the United States. His practice includes representing clients in cases involving technology related to the biotechnology, medical device, and telecommunications industries. His past and present clients include General Electric, EchoStar Communications/DISH Network, Dexcom, Inc., Sandoz, Inc., Charter Communications, Target Corporation, Palm, Inc., and Kyocera.
He has tried patent cases to verdict in both bench and jury trials, and has been involved in patent litigation before the United States International Trade Commission. His patent trial experience includes representing San Diego-based Scantibodies Laboratories in a patent dispute with Nichols Institute Diagnostics, a subsidiary of Quest Diagnostics. The case involved polyclonal antibodies for diagnostic assays used to detect levels of human parathyroid hormone in kidney dialysis patients. The case involved a series of trials, including one bench trial and two jury trials. Mr. Woodmansee obtained a defense verdict that the asserted patent was invalid on three different grounds and that one of his client's two products did not infringe. Mr. Woodmansee handled the case in the pre-trial, trial, and appellate phases.
Mr. Woodmansee also has briefed cases before a number of appellate courts, including the United States Supreme Court, the United States Courts of Appeals for the Seventh, Ninth, and Federal Circuits, as well as the California Supreme Court. In addition to his intellectual property practice, Mr. Woodmansee also litigates cases involving First Amendment challenges, particularly with respect to the Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses.
He has served as trial and appellate counsel in several high-profile civil rights and First Amendment cases, most notably Barnes-Wallace, et al. v. Boy Scouts of America, et al., 530 F.3d 776 (9th Cir. 2008). In that case, he won two summary judgment rulings in 2003 and 2004 on behalf of his clients, an agnostic couple and a lesbian couple, as well as their Scouting-age boys. The Court ruled that the City of San Diego's free leases of 18 acres in Balboa Park and one acre in Mission Bay Park to the Boy Scouts violate the Establishment Clause of the United States Constitution, as well as the No Aid and No Preference Clauses of the California Constitution.
In 2008, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held that his clients have standing to pursue their claims and certified three questions of state law to the California Supreme Court. The defendants have filed a petition for certiorari in the United States Supreme Court challenging the Ninth Circuit's ruling.
Mr. Woodmansee is a Lawyer Representative to the United States District Court for the Southern District of California and past Barrister in the Louis M. Welsh American Inn of Court. Mr. Woodmansee has served as a faculty member for the National Institute of Trial Advocacy, and he has lectured on patent law at the University of San Diego Law School. He also sits on the board of directors of the San Diego Volunteer Lawyer Program, San Diego County's largest pro bono legal services provider. He also is a member of the Firm's Diversity Strategy Committee.
While earning his J.D., Mr. Woodmansee was a Thomas J. White Scholar recipient and Executive Editor of the Notre Dame Journal of Law, Ethics & Public Policy.