Michael Pattillo is an experienced appellate litigator. He has argued before the U.S. Supreme Court, federal courts of appeals, and a state supreme court. Pattillo’s practice also includes critical motions and issue analysis at the trial level.
Pattillo has extensive experience with appeals in patent cases before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. He has won cases setting precedent on major issues of patent law, including McRO, Inc. v. Namco Bandai Games America (patent-eligibility of software under 35 U.S.C. § 101) and Therasense, Inc. v. Becton, Dickinson & Co. (standard for inequitable conduct). He has successfully defended patent infringement verdicts worth hundreds of millions of dollars; won appeals of inter partes review decisions by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board; and obtained affirmance of exclusion orders issued by the International Trade Commission.
Pattillo also has experience in a wide variety of substantive areas beyond patent law, including the Federal Trade Commission Act, the False Claims Act, administrative law, securities fraud, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, campaign finance, federal preemption, the dormant Commerce Clause, and mass torts.
Pattillo is a founding partner of MoloLamken. He was previously an associate with Williams & Connolly LLP and Baker Botts LLP. Before entering private practice, Pattillo served as a law clerk to Judge Stanley F. Birch of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit and to Justice Nathan L. Hecht of the Supreme Court of Texas.
Lawdragon Honors
| Honor | Year | Practice |
|---|---|---|
| The 2027 Lawdragon 500 Leading Litigators in America | 2027 | Appellate, inc. Supreme Court, IP |
| Lawdragon 500 Leading Litigators in America | 2022 | Appellate |
Representative Matters
-
Federal Trade Commission v. Zaappaaz, LLC, 140 F.4th 675 (5th Cir. 2025): Successfully argued appeal overturning $25 million damages award under Section 19 of the FTC Act.
-
Netflix, Inc. v. DivX, LLC, 84 F.4th 1371 (Fed. Cir. 2023): Successfully argued appeal defending PTAB decision rejecting Netflix’s challenges to DivX patent claims concerning streaming video technology.
-
Mylan Pharms. Inc. v. Merck Sharp & Dohme Corp., 50 F.4th 147 (Fed. Cir. 2022): Successfully defended PTAB decision rejecting Mylan’s anticipation and obviousness challenges to Merck patent claims for compounds for treating Type-2 diabetes.
-
Comcast Corp. v. Int’l Trade Comm’n, 951 F.3d 1301 (Fed. Cir. 2020): Successfully defended ITC order excluding from importation certain set-top boxes that infringe Rovi Corp.’s patents.
-
TCL Commc’ns Holdings Ltd. v. Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson, 943 F.3d 1360 (Fed. Cir. 2019): Successfully overturned, on Seventh Amendment grounds, district court’s decision that Ericsson’s rates for patents essential to 2G, 3G, and 4G mobile communications standards were not “fair, reasonable, and nondiscriminatory,” and imposing unfavorable rates going forward
-
Continental Circuits LLC v. Intel Corp., 915 F.3d 788 (Fed. Cir. 2019): Succeeded in overturning case-dispositive construction of Continental Circuit’s patent claims on manufacturing multi-layer electronic devices.
- Gilead Scis., Inc. v. Merck & Co., Inc., 888 F.3d 1231 (Fed. Cir. 2018): Represented Merck in challenging decision applying the “unclean hands” doctrine to erase Merck’s $200-million patent infringement judgment against Gilead.
-
Hasty v. Abbasi, 137 S. Ct. 1843 (2017): Successfully represented federal prison warden in Supreme Court case addressing whether Bivens extends to actions undertaken by prison officials in connection with confinement of foreign nationals detained in the course of the government’s 9/11 terrorism investigation.
-
Rambus Inc. v. Rea, 527 F. App’x 902 (Fed. Cir. 2013): Successfully represented Rambus in challenging a PTO decision finding patent on DRAM technology to be invalid as anticipated.
-
Represented major technology companies and trade groups as amici curiae in significant patent and technology-related cases:
-
Google, LLC v. Oracle America, Inc., 141 S. Ct. 1183 (2021)
-
Sequenom, Inc. v. Ariosa Diagnostics, Inc., 579 U.S. 928 (2016)
-
Alice Corp. Pty. Ltd. v. CLS Bank Int’l, 573 U.S. 208 (2014)
-
Ass’n for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics, Inc., 569 U.S. 576 (2013)
-
Oracle Am., Inc. v. Google Inc., 886 F.3d 1179 (Fed. Cir. 2018)
-