Lionel Lavenue’s practice focuses on patent trial litigation, including 19 bench or jury trials, and on creating and managing large patent portfolios. With experience in almost 200 patent cases, he has managed or served as first chair in numerous district court litigations, including more than 60 cases in the E.D. Texas, almost a dozen patent infringement cases and/or matters under Section 1498(a) in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, more than a dozen disputes under Section 337 before the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC), and multiple arbitrations.
Lionel has argued dozens of Markman hearings. He has directed the discovery for numerous complex cases and disputes, and he has taken or defended over 200 depositions. He also has briefed and argued numerous patent/IP appeals at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.
With experience in the preparation of over 1,850 patent applications, Lionel also oversees the creation and management of large corporate patent portfolios. He has organized and managed numerous large domestic and foreign patent portfolios.
Lionel’s practice includes litigation, patent applications, and opinion work related to business methods, computers, software, and electrical and mechanical devices (including medical devices, especially medical device software applications). He has also directed numerous ex parte and inter partes patent reexamination proceedings, including more than 75 “defensive reexaminations” used during litigations. As one of the first to challenge a patent via the inter partes review (IPR) procedure, he has led the filing of more than 85 IPR petitions and covered business method (CBM) petitions.
Lionel has a particular expertise with patent disputes involving government contracts, including patent infringement claims under 28 U.S.C. § 1498, with extensive experience with numerous cases before the U.S. Court of Federal Claims. He holds Public Trust clearance, and previously held Top Secret and Code Word clearances.
Lionel routinely lectures to bar associations and aviation groups on patent law issues related to aircraft, rotorcraft, soaring, skydiving, and lighter-than-air technologies. He is an active and current airplane and helicopter pilot (and occasional glider and balloon pilot), and he counsels many aviation and aerospace companies on IP issues. Lionel also has extensive experience with drone, UAV, and UAS technologies.
As a Fulbright Scholar, Lionel participated in a visiting scholar program at the Max Planck Institute in Munich, Germany, focusing on the study of foreign and international patent, copyright, and competition law.
Lionel and his wife are alpine mountaineers, skydivers, and adventurers. Of the Seven Summits (the highest peaks of the seven continents), they have summited six (Mt. Kilimanjaro in Africa in 1999; Mt. Elbrus in Russia in 2002; Mt. Aconcagua in South America in 2002; Mt. McKinley in North America and Mt. Vinson in Antarctica in 2004; and Mt. Kosciuszko in Oceania in 2007) and have plans for other expeditions soon. Lionel holds several formation skydiving world records. He and his wife are scheduled on an early commercial space flight in 2021.
Lionel works with leading innovators across technology markets including automotive, robotics, and artificial intelligence. Lionel has extensive experience with both front end and back end features of mobile apps, including applications of object-oriented design, HTML5 architecture, the Angular, Apache Kafka, and MICRON frameworks, and BIAN. He has represented Boeing in patent matters relating to aircraft software products; represented Bosch both in patent enforcement and in the defense of multiple patent infringement lawsuits related to various electronic and mechanical technologies; defended various LG entities in multiple patent infringement lawsuits, primarily in the E.D. Texas, involving electronic, mechanical, and telecommunication technologies; and defended Sony in multiple patent infringement lawsuits in the E.D. Texas, N.D. California, and C.D. California, involving electronic, software, and mechanical technologies, as well as in arbitration issues before the Japan Commercial Arbitration Association (JCAA). He has also represented the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) and governmental entities in protecting, defending, and enforcing mechanical, electronic, and software innovations.
