Intellectual property lawyers Joshua Budwin, Richard Kamprath, Kevin Burgess and John Campbell are bringing a new boutique powered by Big Law veterans to the market.
The former McKool Smith principals are the latest in a string of departures from the Dallas-based national litigation firm. Last week, three principals moved to Vartabedian Katz Hester & Haynes.
“It’s something we’ve been thinking about on and off for a while,” Budwin said. “I tell my kids if you want to be truly successful, you’ve got to work for yourself.”
Budwin Kamprath Burgess & Campbell will focus on high-stakes patent and IP disputes. The foursome has more than 80 years of combined experience in trials and enforcement initiatives, including extensive work before the International Trade Commission.
The firm will also offer appellate advocacy and licensing counseling. Budwin has argued multiple cases at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, while Campbell has experience at the U.S. Supreme Court. Kamprath, who was an electrical engineer for Schlumberger before pivoting to the law, leads global licensing campaigns for clients.
One former colleague, Travis DeArman, who was part of the group that joined Vartabedian Katz, said Budwin, Kamprath, Burgess, and Campbell are “some of the brightest technical minds out there.”
In a conversation with The Texas Lawbook, Budwin and Kamprath emphasized they want to represent patent owners of all sizes and are interested in taking cases on contingency.
“We wanted the freedom to work on the kinds of cases we want to work on,” Kamprath said. “We want to fight for the little guys as well as the larger corporate clients we have.”
One of those large clients is InterDigital, a global research and development company that owns tens of thousands of patents. Kamprath and Budwin handle a significant piece of their domestic litigation and are currently representing InterDigital against Disney in a global patent dispute over video compression and streaming technologies. The team has obtained numerous injunctions against Disney from the Unified Patent Court and from national courts in Germany and Brazil.
Coincidentally, InterDigital was the client responsible for Budwin moving to Texas. One of his law professors at Temple University Beasley School of Law in Philadelphia connected Budwin with McKool Smith, which represented InterDigital.
“My professor said, ‘You’ll move to Texas, marry a Texas girl, and stay there,’” Budwin recalls. “He was right.”
Budwin and Kamprath said they hope to see more balance in the U.S. for patent owners to defend their patent rights, pointing to the recent success they’ve had in getting injunctive relief in international venues for InterDigital.
“It would be great if we could see injunctions come back in the U.S.,” said Budwin, who is closely following legislation related to Section 101 of the U.S. Patent Act. “There’s been some promise in recent years.”
Budwin was a part of the McKool Smith team that two weeks ago won a defense jury verdict in the Eastern District of Texas finding AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, Ericsson, and Nokia did not infringe on three patents where the plaintiffs were seeking $436 million in damages.
Burgess, a former Federal Circuit clerk, was a lead lawyer on one of the top verdicts of 2023, a $303 million victory in the Eastern District of Texas for Netlist against Samsung. He also aided the McKool Smith cohort that achieved the landmark $1.4 billion settlement for the State of Texas against Meta Platforms/Facebook. It was the largest settlement ever secured by a single state.
Budwin told The Lawbook the new firm plans to add three to six associates and build up to around 10 attorneys.
“We want to work in a collegial environment where everyone knows everyone,” Budwin said. “I’m a firm believer in giving younger lawyers meaningful opportunities.”