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, and a 2020 inductee into the elite International Academy 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. Most recently, 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 been recognized by Chambers USA, which consistently ranks him as one of the U.S.'s preeminent patent litigators, describing him as “a superb trial lawyer and a terrific strategic thinker" who is an “invaluable resource for clients”. In 2020 and 2021, The Legal 500 US recognized him for Intellectual Property: Patents: Litigation. Mr. Black was named a winner by The Legal Intelligencer’s 2020 Professional Excellence Awards in the “Distinguished Leader” category. He 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, and IAM Patent 1000 previously printed that as “the architect of abundant multimillion-dollar courtroom triumphs, he is the counsel of choice for marquee names.” Mr. Black 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.
