Experienced patent trial lawyer Ted Stevenson has left McKool Smith to join Alston & Bird’s Dallas office, the firm announced on Tuesday.
Stevenson had spent the last 19 years at McKool Smith, and before, another 13 years at Hughes & Luce.
Stevenson handles intellectual property and competition cases for clients that include Ericsson, PanOptis, Nokia and AT&T. He has tried more than 25 patent and technology cases involving a range of technological innovations, including cellular telephones, balloon angioplasty catheters and integrated circuits.
Stevenson said he had known Alston & Bird by reputation for years as one of the top national firms, and that he got to know many of the firm’s attorneys through co-counseling on patent matters.
“Learning through them about the firm’s capabilities and culture made it an easy decision,” Stevenson said.
Separately, Stevenson has handled six trials and one arbitration over FRAND issues, a specialized subcategory of patent law that usually involves disputes over whether proposed royalties for standard essential patent portfolios comply with fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory statutes (FRAND).
Although Stevenson has won three nine-digit jury verdicts, he said the FRAND disputes consist of some of the biggest matters in his career in terms of what is at stake for the client because they “adjudicate worldwide royalty rates.
“It is important to innovation that companies receive fair compensation for their inventive contributions to our lives,” Stevenson said.
Last year, Stevenson was part of a team that secured a dismissal of one such case on behalf of Nokia. The Finnish telecommunications company was one of several defendants named in a federal antitrust lawsuit that alleged the defendant group conspired to inflate licensing rates for cellular connectivity technology. On that team with Stevenson was Alston & Bird partner Mike Newton.
In 2019, Stevenson won a defense verdict for Ericsson in the first jury-related breach of FRAND case related to cellular patents in the Eastern District of Texas. It was brought by HTC and is currently on appeal.
“Ericsson is a client I had been representing in patent matters for nearly two decades,” Stevenson told The Texas Lawbook. “It was very meaningful for me to help long-time friends prevail in an important case.”
In 2018, Stevenson scored a $10.5 million jury verdict in East Texas on behalf of Optis Wireless Technology and PanOptis Patent Management after the jury found Huawei Technologies infringed on five PanOptis patents related to the efficiency of 4G LTE technology and the decoding of picture and audio data on Huawei’s Android smartphones.
“Ted is an incredibly well-regarded litigator and an exciting addition to our team who opens new opportunities for our clients in resolving mission-critical IP disputes,” said Darren Hauck, partner in charge of Alston & Bird’s Dallas and Fort Worth offices. “He joins our deep bench of high-caliber litigators and other attorneys as we continue to grow the office to address increasing client demand across a number of practices, including IP.”
Alston & Bird partner John Haynes, co-chair of the firm’s intellectual property litigation group, agreed.
“Ted is recognized as one of the country’s foremost patent trial attorneys whose extensive trial experience, litigation skills, and sophisticated, strategic counsel will strengthen our already formidable presence in the courtroom,” Haynes said. “He brings superb credentials to an exceptional track record representing many of the world’s leading innovators.”