Brann & Isaacson represents primarily retail clients in patent, trademark, trade dress, and copyright cases both at the trial court and on appeal. We have won precedent–setting discovery motions, argued claim construction, obtained summary judgment and judgment as a matter of law, tried intellectual property cases to a jury verdict in courts around the country, and argued and won patent cases in the Federal Circuit. We frequently file friend of the court briefs and have participated in moot courts in major patent cases in the U.S. Supreme Court and Federal Circuit. Although we can, and do, litigate patent, trademark, trade dress, and copyright cases, we never lose sight of the fact that our clients would prefer to get back to the business of selling clothes or electronics or pet medicines. Our strategy is simple: what is in the client’s best interest? This approach has led Corporate Intl Magazine to name Brann & Isaacson its IP Litigation Law Firm of the Year in Maine every year since 2016.
“Thinking outside the box ” is not a cliché at Brann & Isaacson. In some cases, we negotiate license agreements. In others, we coordinate joint defense efforts. In still others, we chart our own course, emphasizing our clients’ unique defenses. We often pursue indemnification so that our clients’ vendors can hire their own lawyers and litigate or settle the case, and let our clients get back to business. But the goal is always the same—resolve each matter satisfactorily, soon, and as inexpensively as possible.
“The lawyers at Brann & Isaacson are vested in a true partnership with Talbots. They understand our business, our brand and our values. They work collaboratively with our legal and business teams with the same level of passion and intensity that we expect from our own employees. Moreover, they appreciate the strategic value of written correspondence and polite advocacy, which has worked to Talbots’ advantage on countless occasions.”
Mara D. Calame, Chief Legal Officer, The Talbots, Inc.
We have organized and actively participated in numerous joint defense groups in multi–party and multi–district litigation in patent and trademark cases in Delaware, Georgia, Illinois, Maryland, and Texas. We have served on committees overseeing multi–party litigation, or handled certain critical aspects of the litigation, such as claim construction or discovery. We often represent multiple defendants sued by the same plaintiff to provide a cost–effective defense by spreading shared costs as widely as possible.
And we are willing to march to the beat of our own drummer. In a number of cases, plaintiffs have agreed to drop their claims or dismiss their lawsuits in light of unique arguments or defenses we have presented. In other cases, once plaintiffs are convinced that our clients are a “one–off,” they have lowered their settlement demands by 90% or more. But, if we cannot convince plaintiffs to drop the case or moderate their demands, we can, and will, litigate the case vigorously through final judgment.
We represent large and small companies from across the country in intellectual property cases in federal court and the International Trade Commission. Some of them are brick–and–mortar companies, while others are entirely online. Companies that we have represented in federal court on intellectual property matters include Abt Electronics, Ann Taylor, A|X Armani Exchange, Balsam Brands, barnesandnoble.com, Crutchfield, DeLorme, Express, Gilt, Hasbro, J. Crew, J. Jill, L.L. Bean, Microsoft, OKCupid, Orchard Brands, Overstock, Nordstrom, PC Connection, PetMed Express, Staples, Talbots, Target, and Warby Parker.
“A client cheers, ‘Stacy Stitham is an excellent technical lawyer and helps us with discovery and case assessment in patent infringement cases, and Peter Brann helps in negotiating on our behalf both with patent holders and with our indemnitors. They are very practical, no–nonsense lawyers – how to mitigate risk and not get bogged down.’”
Benchmark Litigation (2013)
Brann & Isaacson has handled patent, trademark, trade dress, and copyright cases primarily on behalf of retailers in federal court in Arizona, California, Delaware, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Maine, Maryland, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, and Washington, and has handled patent cases in the International Trade Commission.
In many cases, we defend our clients against patent trolls (who prefer to be called ““patent assertion entities” or “non–practicing entities”), or operating companies “monetizing” their patent portfolios. We have defended our clients against entities such as Acacia, ACK Ventures, Alcatel–Lucent, ArrivalStar, Batarga, Card Activation Technologies, Charles Hill, Clear With Computers, Cronos, Data Carriers, Eclipse IP, eDekka, Furnace Brook, Genaville, GeoTag, Helferich, Innovatio IP Ventures, Kelora Systems, Lamina Packaging Innovations, Landmark Technology, Lemelson, Lodsys, MacroSolve, NCR, Oberalis, Optimize Technology Solutions, Parallel Networks, Patent Group, Phoenicia, Princeton Digital, Semantic Search, Soverain Software, UbiComm, US Ethernet, USB Technologies, and Webvention.
Brann & Isaacson does not represent patent trolls and others “monetizing” their patent portfolios.
In addition to representing clients at the trial level, we represent retailers and others in intellectual property cases on appeal. We have extensive appellate experience, having handled over 80 appeals in both intellectual property and other types of cases for public and private clients in the U.S. Supreme Court, most of the U.S. Courts of Appeals, and numerous state appeals courts. We have filed on behalf of numerous retailers and retail organizations friend of the court briefs and have participated in moot courts in the U.S. Supreme Court and the Federal Circuit in many of the major patent cases of the last few years.
