Fish & Richardson attorneys Betsy Flanagan and Ben Thompson have been selected as 2019 "Rising Stars" by Law360. The award honors attorneys under the age of 40 with notable accomplishments in their practice area. Flanagan was one of only six Intellectual Property Rising Stars and Thompson was one of only four International Trade Rising Stars to win this prestigious award.
Flanagan is a principal in Fish's Twin Cities office where she focuses on complex patent litigation, with an emphasis on life sciences, biotechnology and pharmaceutical litigation, including Hatch-Waxman litigation. She has worked on numerous Federal Circuit appeals, has practiced before the International Trade Commission (ITC) and has experience in inter partes review. Flanagan was both trial and appellate counsel – and one of an all-women oral argument team that led and won a unanimous Federal Circuit decision in April 2018 that affirmed Fish's June 2016 post-trial reversal of a $200 million jury verdict against client Gilead. The Federal Circuit affirmed $14 million in attorneys' fees awarded to Gilead in July 2018, and the U.S. Supreme Court denied certiorari in January 2019.
Flanagan was also part of the appellate team that won a critical February 2019 Federal Circuit affirmance for client Mayo Collaborative Services in a patent infringement case brought by Athena Diagnostics over a method for diagnosing a rare autoimmune disorder. Fish got the district court case dismissed, with the judge ruling that the claimed methods of testing relied on a law of nature and thus were not eligible for patenting. The Federal Circuit denied en banc review in July 2019.
Thompson, a principal in the firm's Atlanta office, is one of an elite group of lawyers who focus on patent litigation at the ITC – handling and winning complex patent cases for major technology companies with millions of dollars of annual imports often at risk. Over the past two years alone, he's had leading roles in four ITC patent infringement cases, including back-to-back trial victories for separate complainants in important competitor cases in less than a year.
Thompson's recent ITC experience includes a series of high-stakes competitor cases for one of the firm's largest clients. The U.S. cases spanned several district court actions, multiple ITC investigations, and five inter partes review proceedings, along with 13 lawsuits outside of the U.S. in this massive global litigation. Thompson served as lead counsel on two of the three ITC actions and led a major portion of the third. In the first-filed ITC case, Thompson conducted hours of direct and cross-examination of multiple technical expert witnesses at trial. The ALJ ultimately recommended that certain of Respondent's products should be barred from entering the U.S. because they infringe the asserted patents.
Flanagan received her J.D., magna cum laude, from the University of Minnesota Law School in 2008 and her B.A. in chemistry from Cornell University in 2003. Thompson received his J.D., with honors, from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Law in 2008 and his B.S., cum laude, in computer science engineering from North Carolina State University in 2002.
Fish & Richardson, a premier global intellectual property law firm, is sought-after and trusted by the world's most innovative brands and influential technology leaders. Fish offers patent prosecution, counseling and litigation and trademark and copyright prosecution, counseling and litigation. Our deep bench of attorneys with first-chair trial experience in every technology makes us the go-to firm for the most technically complex cases. We have an established reputation as a top-tier firm for patent portfolio planning, strategy and prosecution, as well as post-grant proceedings at the PTAB. Fish was established in 1878, and now has more than 400 attorneys and technology specialists in the U.S., Europe and China. Our success is rooted in our creative and inclusive culture, which values the diversity of people, experiences and perspectives. For more information, visit fr.com or follow us at @FishRichardson.
