They’ve Got Next: Intellectual Property Fresh Face Kayvan Noroozi

Kayvan Noroozi views the practice of law through an entrepreneurial lens.

In 2014, Noroozi glimpsed a big opportunity in the then-nascent world of inter partes review. A new administrative patent challenge process established as an alternative to ligation, IPRs were “at odds with much else in the patent space” at the time, Noroozi said.

“The question was, what do you do about it? Do nothing, try to fight it, or find a way to embrace it.” Noroozi said, “My view was the third.”

That’s when the young lawyer started Noroozi PC, a firm focused on patent litigation, including defending the validity of patents being challenged in IPRs.

“I brought a patent trial lawyer’s approach to IPRs at a time when it was dominated by attorneys who mainly worked on patent prosecution,” Noroozi said.“I thought it was misguided, frankly, for a client to look at it as another patent office proceeding. It’s a gauntlet, but when you pass it, it can be valuable.”

Noroozi knows that value first hand. Besides starting his own firm, he launched Koios Pharmaceuticals LLC, an outfit that teams up with generic drug companies in pursuing multi-venue legal actions. That effort led Noroozi to be the petitioner, or challenging party, in an inter partes review.

“There’s nothing like skin in the game, to help you understand where the pressure points are,” he said. “There’s nothing like finding every rule and detail in the book that can be to your advantage and disadvantage.”

Noroozi began his legal career at Irell & Manella LLP, where he had his first brushes with patent litigation. When he left for Dovel & Luner LLP, Noroozi was put on a case that put him up against AT&T Inc., Verizon Communications Inc. and Alphabet Inc.'s Google. The case involved multiple location technologies for generating a better mobile location estimate. Noroozi said the experience helped shape him as a lawyer.

“Being able to litigate against Google and Quinn Emmanuel in that David-v.-Goliath mode as a young lawyer and being able to hold your own, it was a great proving ground,” Noroozi said. “It gave me the confidence to think, I’m ready to start taking full cases.”

It wouldn’t be the last time Noroozi squared off against major tech and telecom companies. Three months before trial, Noroozi PC took over Core Wireless’ patent infringement suit against LG Electronics, obtaining, Noroozi said, “the first-ever enhanced damages award in a case involving declared standard-essential patents.” Noroozi also authored Core Wireless’ brief in a related U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit case on patent eligibility, the decision from which has been cited in a PTO memo to patent examiners.

“The thing that stands out to me about working with Kayvan is his tenacious attention to detail,” said Brad Caldwell, a principal at Caldwell Cassady & Curry who worked with Noroozi in an International Trade Commission case in 2019 and 2020.

“Even as a lead lawyer and head of his firm, he maintained an extremely detailed and granular grasp of a sprawling number of issues,” Caldwell said.

Noroozi co-authored a 2017 Berkeley Technology Law Journal article on making injunctions available for patent owners when an accused infringer won’t take a license in bad faith that Department of Justice antitrust chief Makan Delrahim repeatedly cited when announcing a policy shift on standard essential patents.

Noroozi said new attorneys should take on as much as work as they can to advance their careers. He said some of the “best advice” he got while at Irell early in his career was to treat senior law firm partners like they’re clients.

“A lot of us, when we start, want to be the apprentice,” he said. “Don’t come to them with problems. Come to them with your thought-out, well-proposed solution. You’ll see they’ll reciprocate as great mentors.”