Steven Lieberman

“Trial lawyers do not come better than Steven Lieberman.”
– 2019 IAM Patent 1000: The World's Leading Patent Professionals

“One of the best lawyers in DC in any practice, Steve is incredibly smart and thorough – and also lightning-quick on his feet.”
– 2020 IAM Patent 1000: The World's Leading Patent Professionals

Overview

Steven Lieberman, "the best strategic thinker" (Chambers USA 2020) and "one of the best lawyers in DC in any practice" (IAM Patent 1000 2020), is a litigator and counselor whose private law practice encompasses the spectrum of intellectual property law, from patent litigation, especially in the pharmaceutical-medical area, to eCommerce, privacy, and post-grant proceedings. His successful representation of a wide range of clients, from very large pharmaceutical companies to start-ups and small enterprises, is enumerated below. Steven’s public service is equally distinguished. He is an accomplished First Amendment litigator with a strong devotion to issues of constitutional law and religious liberties.

Pharmaceutical and Biotech Patent Litigation

In the area of patent litigation, Steven has handled a variety of lawsuits in the pharmaceutical, biotech, veterinary, and medical products fields in both the district courts (and on appeal) and before the International Trade Commission. These actions include representing Burroughs Wellcome Co. in a number of lawsuits including actions relating to AZT (Retrovir) as a therapy for humans infected with the virus that causes AIDS; Zeneca Inc. in an action relating to its prostate cancer therapy Casodex; and Mylan Pharmaceuticals Inc. in actions relating to, inter alia, buspirone, nifedipine, nitroglycerin patches, diltiazem, amlodipine and cimetidine. Steven's representation of Mylan in its patent and antitrust actions against Bristol-Myers Squibb arising from Bristol's improper listing of a buspirone metabolite patent in the Orange Book recently resulted in Bristol paying $535 million to settle antitrust claims brought against it by Mylan, 29 state Attorneys General, and private class action plaintiffs. He currently represents a number of generic pharmaceutical companies (including Spear Pharmaceuticals and Cypress) and NBTY, the nation’s largest manufacturer and distributor of vitamins, in patent infringement litigation, including a case in which NBTY was recently granted summary judgment of patent invalidity.

Patent and Other Intellectual Property Litigation for Media, Financial and Electronic Commerce Companies

Steven has also acted as lead counsel for parties in a wide variety of patent cases outside the pharmaceutical area. He also regularly represents clients on intellectual property matters relating to electronic commerce. Steven's clients in this area include both Fortune 500 companies and Internet start-up entities. For example, he currently represents or has recently represented The New York Times Company (more than twenty litigations), Dow Jones, News Corporation of America, Disney, CBS, NBCUniversal, Bloomberg, Standard & Poor’s, Fandango, Dentsply Sirona, LGE, Netflix, HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, Penguin Random House, Advance Publications, ALM Media, American Media, Cox Broadcasting, CNBC, Fox News, Fox Sports, Fox Broadcasting, Univision, Hulu, Time Warner, HBO, CBS Interactive Inc., Spear Pharmaceuticals, Cypress Pharmaceuticals, Gannett, Investment Technology Group (ITG), Cognizant, and the McGraw-Hill Companies in litigation or litigation-related matters. He advises companies with respect to evaluation of potentially patentable inventions, strategic planning for protecting intellectual property relating to Internet businesses, and potential infringement issues. Steven recently obtained several summary judgment rulings of invalidity or non-infringement on behalf of accused infringers and obtained a judgment (after trial) of willful infringement for an e-commerce client that had sued a competitor for copying several of its online advertisements. In addition to finding willful infringement following a bench trial, the Court in that case awarded Steven's client both statutory damages and more than $250,000 in attorneys' fees and costs.

Post-Grant Proceedings

Steven has considerable expertise and experience in handling the post-grant proceedings created by the America Invents Act. Specifically, he regularly first-chairs final hearings before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) in both IPR and CBM proceedings.

His success rate in IPRs is unusually high: 17 of 19 (89%) representing petitioners; 10 of 11 (91%) representing patent owners. Specifically, in 19 IPRs representing petitioners, 17 petitions were instituted on all claims, with all claims being cancelled in nine proceedings and eight other proceedings settled for no money. In 11 IPRs representing patent owners, six petitions were denied institution, four of the five instituted IPRs were denied on at least some claims, and three of the five instituted IPRs had surviving claims.

Privacy and Trade Secrets

Steven, a Certified Information Privacy Professional in the United States (CIPP/US), advises clients on the broad range of cybersecurity, privacy, and data protection issues that businesses face daily, including the effects of the GDPR on U.S.-based entities, and he has extensive experience successfully representing clients in privacy-related investigations initiated by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). He has been a co-author of the District of Columbia section of the Media Law Resource Center’s annual 50-State Survey of Media Privacy and Related Law since 1995, and he regularly writes and lectures in the field. Steven regularly represents clients with respect to matters involving trade secrets, including representing clients in litigation involving theft of trade secrets.

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Steven has expertise in the rapidly growing field of artificial intelligence (AI). He has more than six years of experience advising entities spanning a wide range of industries, with particular focus on the media industry, on intellectual property and privacy issues concerning AI and machine learning. Recently, Steven and his colleagues Jennifer Maisel and Kristen Logan filed a lawsuit on behalf of The New York Times against OpenAI and Microsoft alleging copyright infringement by their generative AI tools. The case is pending in the Southern District of New York.

First Amendment

Steven also has particular expertise in the First Amendment area. At Cahill, Gordon & Reindel he worked extensively with Floyd Abrams and Dean Ringel on a variety of media matters including many high-profile defamation suits. Currently, Steven advises clients on First Amendment issues, litigates First Amendment cases, and has served as an expert witness on U.S. defamation law. He served as co-counsel to The New York Times in a defamation action brought by the former chief medical examiner of the City of New York that was dismissed on summary judgment after fifteen years of litigation. Steven has won a groundbreaking ruling from the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, quoting in its entirety a subpoena pursuant to which a major pharmaceutical company sought to compel The Cancer Letter to produce documents and testimony regarding its confidential and non-confidential sources. He has co-authored an amicus brief to the United States Supreme Court on behalf of the American Bar Association in the First Amendment/copyright case Golan v. Holder.

Public Service

Steven serves or has served on the boards of a number of non-profit organizations including the American Jewish Committee (co-chair of the BDS Task Force), the Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School, Beth Sholom Congregation and Talmud Torah (of which he is currently a Vice-President and Trustee), Yeshivat Chovevei Torah ("YCT"), and the Association for Safe International Road Travel. Steven served as Chairman of the Board of Yeshivat Chovevei Torah ("YCT"), an open Orthodox rabbinical school from 2010 until August 2016, and is currently Chairman Emeritus.

He regularly represents clients on a pro bono basis in cases involving religious liberties. These cases have included a lawsuit against the District of Columbia arising from its scheduling of a special election on a Jewish holiday, which resulted in D.C. agreeing not to schedule future elections on Jewish holidays; a lawsuit involving the desecration of Jewish graves at the Belzec death camp in Poland; and a lawsuit against the late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on behalf of the Jewish community in Caracas before the Inter-American Conversion on Human Rights. He currently represents Chabad in its lawsuit against the Russian Federation arising from the Russian Federation’s theft of and unlawful refusal to return Chabad’s sacred books and manuscripts, as well as the Bethesda African Cemetery Coalition (BACC) and the pastor of the Macedonia Baptist Church in Bethesda, Maryland, in a fight to halt the sale of the Moses African Cemetery, the burial ground of hundreds of formerly enslaved Africans to a developer. In a historic ruling, Judge Karla Smith of the Circuit Court for Montgomery County granted the clients’ motion for a preliminary (and then a permanent) injunction preventing the sale of the Moses African Cemetery unless and until the owner of the property complied with a Maryland law that requires the seller of land that is or was used as a burial ground to bring an action for approval of such sale so that the court may decide whether, and under what terms and conditions, such a sale might take place. Steven recently represented Kurt Eichenwald, a highly-regarded journalist, pro bono in a civil case arising from a weaponized Twitter attack on him. Mr. Eichenwald is an epileptic who was sent a flashing strobe light with the phrase “You deserve a seizure for your posts” by John Rivello, a white supremacist. The message caused a seizure. After three years of litigation, Mr. Eichenwald won on all of his civil claims, including assault, battery, and intentional infliction of emotional distress, and was awarded a $100,000 judgment. The groundbreaking case is already being taught in law schools around the country, including the Duke University Law School and William & Mary Law School.

Steven has been honored by Ohev Sholom — The National Synagogue, Beth Sholom Congregation of Talmud Torah, Yeshivat Chovevei Torah, and the Association for Safe International Road Travel for his work on behalf of those organizations.

Steven was born in New York City and received an A.B. degree from Princeton University, summa cum laude, in 1980 and a J.D. degree from Columbia University Law School in 1984 (Stone Scholar all three years). He is a member of the Giles S. Rich American Inn of Court (President, 2003-04; Vice President 2002-03); the Association of the Bar of the City of New York (Communications Law Committee, 1990-93); the New York State Bar Association (Committee on Media Law, 1993-99); and the American Bar Association.

Following a clerkship with the Honorable Edmund L. Palmieri in the Southern District of New York, Steven was a litigator with Cahill, Gordon & Reindel where he handled a wide range of lawsuits and litigation related matters. During part of that time, he also served as a pro bono Special Counsel to the Disciplinary Committee of the New York Appellate Division, First Department. He has been litigating patent cases since 1991.