Rohit K. Singla

Profile

Rohit K. Singla is a litigation partner focusing on antitrust and intellectual property disputes in a wide range of technology-intensive industries, including software, entertainment, video games, pharmaceuticals and medical devices. An experienced trial lawyer, Mr. Singla has served as first or second chair trial counsel in antitrust, patent and copyright cases. His trial victory in the RealNetworks litigation was recognized by the Daily Journal as one of the highest impact verdicts in California of the year. Mr. Singla also has an active appellate practice, having argued appeals in the 9th, 11th and Federal Circuits. He, for example, persuaded the Federal Circuit to accept TheraSense v. Becton Dickinson, for en banc review to reconsider the law of inequitable conduct. The Federal Circuit’s 2011 opinion in TheraSense has been widely recognized as one of the most important patent-law decisions of the past few years. Mr. Singla's work on the matter earned him a spot on Law360's list of 2011 Intellectual Property MVP’s. Mr. Singla also co-authored the lead merits brief before the United States Supreme Court in FTC v. Actavis, currently pending, which promises to establish the antitrust standard for analyzing patent settlements. 

Mr. Singla has broad antitrust experience with claims of monopolization, horizontal and vertical conspiracies, resale price maintenance and Robinson-Patman Act violations. In his intellectual property practice, Mr. Singla has significant experience with not only patent litigation, but also copyright, Digital Millennium Copyright Act and trade secret claims.

Mr. Singla has developed a particular specialty in the intersection of antitrust and intellectual property, such as antitrust challenges to patent settlements, claims of sham patent litigation, technological tying and intellectual property defenses to antitrust claims.

As a committed member of the legal community, Mr. Singla is a member of the boards of governors of Public Advocates, and the co-chair of the board of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area. He has an active pro bono practice that has included a labor arbitration on behalf of an alternative high school in Oakland, a series of immigration appeals on behalf of an innocent target of post-9/11 antiterrorism investigations, a 9th Circuit appeal in a prisoner civil rights case, asylum cases involving transgender issues and numerous civil rights matters.

Mr. Singla received his law degree, magna cum laude, from Harvard Law School in 1998. After clerking for Judge Alfred T. Goodwin of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit in Pasadena, Mr. Singla spent a year as a research fellow at Stanford Law School’s Law, Science & Technology Program. He joined Munger, Tolles & Olson in 2000 and was elected to the firm’s partnership in 2004.

Mr. Singla received a B.S. with honors in computer science and an M. A. in international policy studies from Stanford University, where he was the first undergraduate to be awarded a teaching fellowship in the Computer Science department and spent four years as a teaching fellow. Mr. Singla then joined McKinsey & Company’s Knowledge Management group in New York.

Notable Prior Representations

  • Abbvie (formerly Abbott Laboratories) in a series of ground-breaking pharmaceutical antitrust cases involving challenges to patent settlements and patent litigation. Mr. Singla was one of trial counsel who obtained a jury verdict in one such case; authored the brief on appeal that resulted in the only direct purchaser class to be decertified on appeal in another case; authored the brief on appeal that first established the “scope of the patent” standard in the courts of appeals; and co-authored the brief before the United States Supreme Court defending the “scope of the patent” standard.
  • TheraSense, in an appeal to the Federal Circuit relating to a patent covering disposable blood glucose test strips. The landmark case led to the Federal Circuit changing the standard by which inequitable conduct is determined.
  • Leegin Creative Leather Products, in multiple trial court and appellate victories against allegations of resale price maintenance
  • Applied Materials, in a patent infringement case in which Mr. Singla obtained a confession of forgery during cross-examination at trial of the plaintiff’s inventor.  The case resulted in a full award of our client’s fees. Mr. Singla then successfully defended the judgment on appeal.
  • Six major motion picture studio members of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), in obtaining permanent injunctions under the DMCA against RealNetworks’ “RealDVD” device for copying DVDs.
  • Microsoft against videogame device manufacturer Datel, defending against antitrust tying and monopolization claims. Mr. Singla responded in part by investigating and developing cross-claims for copyright infringement of source code, misappropriation of trade secret encryption technology, and DMCA violations. The case settled on favorable terms.

Rohit K. Singla is a litigation partner focusing on antitrust and intellectual property disputes in a wide range of technology-intensive industries, including software, entertainment, video games, pharmaceuticals and medical devices. An experienced trial lawyer, Mr. Singla has served as first or second chair trial counsel in antitrust, patent and copyright cases. His trial victory in the RealNetworks litigation was recognized by the Daily Journal as one of the highest impact verdicts in California of the year. Mr. Singla also has an active appellate practice, having argued appeals in the 9th, 11th and Federal Circuits. He, for example, persuaded the Federal Circuit to accept TheraSense v. Becton Dickinson, for en banc review to reconsider the law of inequitable conduct. The Federal Circuit’s 2011 opinion in TheraSense has been widely recognized as one of the most important patent-law decisions of the past few years. Mr. Singla's work on the matter earned him a spot on Law360's list of 2011 Intellectual Property MVP’s. Mr. Singla also co-authored the lead merits brief before the United States Supreme Court in FTC v. Actavis, currently pending, which promises to establish the antitrust standard for analyzing patent settlements. 

Mr. Singla has broad antitrust experience with claims of monopolization, horizontal and vertical conspiracies, resale price maintenance and Robinson-Patman Act violations. In his intellectual property practice, Mr. Singla has significant experience with not only patent litigation, but also copyright, Digital Millennium Copyright Act and trade secret claims.

Mr. Singla has developed a particular specialty in the intersection of antitrust and intellectual property, such as antitrust challenges to patent settlements, claims of sham patent litigation, technological tying and intellectual property defenses to antitrust claims.

As a committed member of the legal community, Mr. Singla is a member of the boards of governors of Public Advocates, and the co-chair of the board of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area. He has an active pro bono practice that has included a labor arbitration on behalf of an alternative high school in Oakland, a series of immigration appeals on behalf of an innocent target of post-9/11 antiterrorism investigations, a 9th Circuit appeal in a prisoner civil rights case, asylum cases involving transgender issues and numerous civil rights matters.

Mr. Singla received his law degree, magna cum laude, from Harvard Law School in 1998. After clerking for Judge Alfred T. Goodwin of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit in Pasadena, Mr. Singla spent a year as a research fellow at Stanford Law School’s Law, Science & Technology Program. He joined Munger, Tolles & Olson in 2000 and was elected to the firm’s partnership in 2004.

Mr. Singla received a B.S. with honors in computer science and an M. A. in international policy studies from Stanford University, where he was the first undergraduate to be awarded a teaching fellowship in the Computer Science department and spent four years as a teaching fellow. Mr. Singla then joined McKinsey & Company’s Knowledge Management group in New York.

Notable Prior Representations

  • Abbvie (formerly Abbott Laboratories) in a series of ground-breaking pharmaceutical antitrust cases involving challenges to patent settlements and patent litigation. Mr. Singla was one of trial counsel who obtained a jury verdict in one such case; authored the brief on appeal that resulted in the only direct purchaser class to be decertified on appeal in another case; authored the brief on appeal that first established the “scope of the patent” standard in the courts of appeals; and co-authored the brief before the United States Supreme Court defending the “scope of the patent” standard.
  • TheraSense, in an appeal to the Federal Circuit relating to a patent covering disposable blood glucose test strips. The landmark case led to the Federal Circuit changing the standard by which inequitable conduct is determined.
  • Leegin Creative Leather Products, in multiple trial court and appellate victories against allegations of resale price maintenance
  • Applied Materials, in a patent infringement case in which Mr. Singla obtained a confession of forgery during cross-examination at trial of the plaintiff’s inventor.  The case resulted in a full award of our client’s fees. Mr. Singla then successfully defended the judgment on appeal.
  • Six major motion picture studio members of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), in obtaining permanent injunctions under the DMCA against RealNetworks’ “RealDVD” device for copying DVDs.
  • Microsoft against videogame device manufacturer Datel, defending against antitrust tying and monopolization claims. Mr. Singla responded in part by investigating and developing cross-claims for copyright infringement of source code, misappropriation of trade secret encryption technology, and DMCA violations. The case settled on favorable terms.