Patrick M. Ryan

Patrick M. Ryan is a shareholder and co-managing partner at the litigation boutique Bartko LLP. He heads the firm's litigation, IP protection and antitrust groups.

He's been in practice for more than 24 years and with Bartko for a decade. At the University of Notre Dame Law School, he learned complex litigation from the inside as a research assistant to the emeritus professor who authored the RICO statute, G. Robert Blakey.

"An amazing person," Ryan said of Blakey. "He was a mob prosecutor with Bobby Kennedy at Justice. I was with him for two years, and the way he analyzed cases and statutes gave me tools I have used every day in my career. I was just emailing him the other day."

In a major trade secrets win in 2019 -- a Daily Journal Top Verdict -- Ryan led the Bartko team that obtained an $845 million jury award for a chip processing software client that accused a rival run by former employees of the theft of research and development material that helped it obtain a multimillion-dollar contract from one of the client's largest customers. It was one of the largest trade secrets awards in U.S. legal history. ASML US Inc. v. XTAL Inc., 16-cv-295051 (S. Clara Co. Super. Ct., filed May 11, 2016).

In 2023, Ryan obtained $2 million in an anti-counterfeiting and trademark infringement case for client JUUL Labs Inc. against a network of counterfeiters in China with a substantial U.S. presence. He and his Bartko team filed a complaint, then moved quickly to obtain a broad TRO and preliminary injunction that included a freeze and transfer to a secure account of $2.8 million of the defendants' assets. The court granted Ryan's motion for summary judgment regarding infringement, awarded statutory damages, found the case exceptional and awarded $800,000 in fees. JUUL Labs Inc. v. Chou et al., 2:21-cv-03056 (C.D. Cal., filed April 8, 2021).

"This is a very organized counterfeiting group in China that ships gray market products into the U.S. with no regard for consumer safety," Ryan said. "It was very gratifying to get a permanent injunction that shut down part of their operation."

Ryan is headed toward trial next year on behalf of a graphic designer who is suing an online marketplace for allegedly having misappropriated a popular type font she created, in a case potentially worth millions of dollars. Laatz et al. v. Zazzle Inc., 5:22-cv-04844 (N.D. Cal., filed Aug. 24, 2022).

"Initial discovery is confirming everything we thought about this case," Ryan said.

-- John Roemer