Fish & Richardson Principal David Conrad Named 2017 "Lawyer on the Rise" by Texas Lawyer

Fish & Richardson announced today that principal David Conrad has been named a "Lawyer on the Rise" by Texas Lawyer. The award honors Texas' most promising lawyers under the age of 40 who have wielded influence and are excelling in their practice areas in the Lone Star State. Conrad will be profiled in the September issue of Texas Lawyer and honored at an event in Dallas on September 6, 2017.

As an intellectual property (IP) litigator at Fish, Conrad has built a reputation as a crusader against bad faith "patent assertion entities" (PAEs), which typically acquire patents, do not practice the underlying technology, and use the patents solely to sue others for infringement. Conrad focuses on stopping PAEs who file baseless patent infringement lawsuits and then pressure companies to settle to avoid the cost of defense. He has become a "go-to" attorney for companies that want to fight back. One of his strategies for effectively knocking out PAEs is to convince groups of defendants to share litigation costs, win on the merits, and then ask the court to order the PAE to pay the defense costs. He has also served as co-counsel with the Electronic Frontier Foundation representing a solo proprietor that sued such a PAE, claiming the PAE was targeting it for patent infringement in bad faith.

In a high-profile patent infringement case brought by Parallel Networks against 120 companies over its patent purportedly covering basic website functionality, Conrad represented over 35 major retailers, banks, and airlines. The court granted an early summary judgment in favor of many defendants and dismissed the case as to them. It was a huge win considering damages could have exceeded $100 million across the cases. The case continued against several other defendants in district court, where Conrad won on a second summary judgment motion, finally zeroing out the plaintiff. He argued the appeal at the Federal Circuit, which affirmed the win.

Conrad is also active in the community, handling pro bono cases in partnership with Kids in Need of Defense, and working on pro bono matters for Texas Appleseed, the Texas Defenders Service, and Immigration Equality. He also participated as an Assistant District Attorney in the Dallas County DA's Office Lawyer on Loan program.

Conrad received his J.D., with honors, from the University of Texas at Austin School of Law in 2007 and his B.S., electrical engineering, from the University of Texas at Austin in 2001.