Martin J. Black leads Dechert’s national IP litigation team. He is an experienced trial lawyer who has tried dozens of cases, winning numerous multi-million dollar awards as a plaintiff and successfully defending his clients in others. As a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers, he has been recognized by his peers as one of the preeminent trial lawyers in North America. He is also an experienced appellate advocate. In SCA Hygiene Products v. First Quality Baby Products, he persuaded the U.S. Supreme Court in a 7-1 decision to overturn 100 years of precedent and bar the defense of laches to claims for patent damages.
Mr. Black has handled a wide range of litigation and strategic patent matters for a diverse array of companies, including Microsoft, Samsung, Hitachi, Endo Pharmaceuticals, GlaxoSmithKline, Baxter Healthcare, PepsiCo, Citigroup, Monster.com and others. He regularly tries cases all over the country and has obtained numerous multimillion-dollar awards. He has had significant success for branded pharmaceutical companies and tech companies in protecting their patent rights at trial. He prevailed in a five-week trial for Endo Pharmaceuticals against seven generic companies, winning injunctions against all seven companies and protecting over US$2 billion in sales. He has won nine multi-million dollar awards in technology cases, including back-to-back jury verdicts three months apart in 2019 of US$43 million (Intellectual Ventures v. Ericsson and T-Mobile) and US$45 million (Hitachi and Mondis v. LG). He also has special expertise in computer-related litigation. In one matter relating to computer monitor technology, he led an international team that generated US$125 million in revenue, culminating in a trial in the District of Delaware, at which he won a US$9 million award, including willfulness damages. In the Eastern District of Texas, he prevailed in a case relating to display patents invented by Hitachi, resulting in an award worth more than US$30 million. In a trade secret and patent case relating to computer avionics, he tried a four-week trial to a jury in the Western District of Tennessee, resulting in a US$23 million award, including willfulness damages and attorneys' fees. Notably, Mr. Black successfully represented Microsoft against Hon Hai Precision a/k/a FoxConn, one of the largest companies in the world, in an extremely financially significant claim in unpaid royalties under Foxconn’s Android operating system patent license.
In addition to his extensive patent litigation experience, Mr. Black has served as lead trial counsel in numerous trademark, copyright, software and trade secret disputes. These include Richards v. CNN International, (E.D. Pa.), which he tried for CNN International in relation to its World Beat music news show, and QVC v. Home Shopping Network, (TTAB), relating to the rights in the phrase "home shopping." He prevailed in the Third Circuit in Scharle v. NASCAR and The Franklin Mint, obtaining the dismissal of a copyright claim brought in relation to the creation of the NASCAR Nextel Cup Trophy. He has also tried trade secret cases relating to packaging machinery, satellite antennae, and advertising materials.
Mr. Black's litigation prowess has also been recognized by Chambers USA, which routinely ranks him as one of the U.S.'s preeminent patent litigators, including being ranked in Band 1 in Pennsylvania in 2023 and 2022. He is routinely listed as a top patent litigator for Pennsylvania and nationwide by IAM Patent 1000, where in 2023, he was noted as having “a powerful presence in the courtroom” and for being “brilliant at distilling down complex ideas and bringing in multi-million-dollar wins for branded pharmaceutical and tech companies.” In 2022, IAM Patent 1000 described Mr. Black as "a go-to lawyer thanks to his thorough case preparation, extensive trial experience, tactical nous and clear communication" who is "calm and measured in his approach, exudes confidence and gets the most difficult jobs done." In 2021, the same publication also praised Mr. Black as "one of the finest first-chair litigators in the country and a wonderful strategist" who "understands intricate science and can restate it in a way that a layperson trier of fact can understand." The Legal 500 US has consistently recognized him for Intellectual Property: Patents: Litigation (2020-2023). He was named an IAM Strategy 300 Global Leader in 2024 and 2023, and is routinely named an IAM Strategy 300 "World’s Leading IP Strategists". In 2022, Mr. Black was named a Top Rated Lawyer in Intellectual Property Law by The American Lawyer. Mr. Black was named a winner by The Legal Intelligencer’ s 2020 Professional Excellence Awards in the "Distinguished Leader" category. He has routinely been named an "IP Star" for patent in Pennsylvania by Managing Intellectual Property and was also named 2020 Outstanding Litigator of the Year: Pennsylvania by Managing Intellectual Property, marking his fifth consecutive win in the category. He is also routinely named a "Life Sciences Star" by LMG Life Sciences, and in 2019, was short-listed for Hatch-Waxman Litigator of the Year. Benchmark Litigation has repeatedly selected him as a national "litigation star". He is also recognized as a preeminent intellectual property lawyer by Best Lawyers in America, was named a Law360 2017 MVP for intellectual property, and was honored as Best of the Bar by the Philadelphia Business Journal in its Best of the Bar Awards 2017.
