Overview

John Lane is the managing principal of Fish & Richardson’s Houston office. He has been listed in Intellectual Asset Management's (IAM) Patent 1000 rankings of the world’s leading patent lawyers every year since 2017. IAM notes John is a “master of contentious matters,” “has a spotless reputation in inter partes reviews,” and “is competitive by nature and has a desire to win that pushes him through tough challenges; however, he is far from obstinate and works well with others to get the best results.”

As a registered patent attorney, John has represented plaintiffs and defendants alike for over 22 years in patent litigation throughout the country, in patent office proceedings, and in appeals. John works with clients ranging from innovative, emerging startup companies to the world’s largest technology companies. His areas of expertise are oil and gas technologies, chemical processes, polymers, pharmaceuticals, and medical devices, but he has also represented many clients in many other technology areas, such as consumer electronics, computer telephony, software, and memory cards. John has been regularly recognized in The Best Lawyers in America, which identifies the top 5.3% of lawyers in the nation based on exhaustive peer-reviewed surveys.

John also maintains an active pro bono practice. In 2021, John’s pro bono client, Sherwood Brown, was released after being wrongly convicted in 1995 of a triple murder and spending 22 years on Mississippi’s death row.

John earned undergraduate degrees in chemical engineering and biology at Auburn University. He attended Auburn on a swimming scholarship on Auburn’s highly ranked NCAA swim team. Before attending law school, he was a chemical engineer at Fluor, one of the world’s largest engineering companies.

Testimonials

“John Lane makes for an excellent lead litigator. Lane stands out in the Texas market for his fluency in life sciences.”

— 2019 IAM Patent 1000

Pro bono activities

  • For over twelve years, John has been lead counsel for Sherwood Brown, who was wrongly convicted of a triple murder and spent 22 years on Mississippi’s death row. At the time Mr. Brown was convicted in 1995, DNA testing was in its infancy and was not conducted. In 2012, John and his co-counsel filed a successful motion in the Mississippi Supreme Court to gain access to the evidence to allow for DNA testing. Two independent laboratories then tested the evidence, which showed that Mr. Brown’s DNA was not present at the crime scene. As a result, in 2018, John and his team secured a ruling from the en banc Mississippi Supreme Court vacating Mr. Brown’s convictions and death penalty sentence. Afterwards, the State announced it intended to retry Mr. Brown and seek the death penalty. But after three years of additional litigation, the State dismissed the case against Mr. Brown, resulting in his release in August 2021. Articles about John’s work on this case appear in Law360, the American Bar Association website, and Lawdragon. John is currently lead counsel for Mr. Brown in a civil case against the State of Mississippi, seeking compensation for his wrongful conviction and decades of incarceration.