Haynes Boone Partners Debbie McComas and Angela Oliver are the “duo to beat at the Federal Circuit,” according to Law360, having won all seven patent appeals they have argued this year. The legal news outlet highlighted the success and strategies of their latest arguments and explored the careers that have developed them into the attorneys they are today.
Read an excerpt below:
"We work side by side, day in day out, on pretty much every Federal Circuit case that we have and cases outside the Federal Circuit as well," McComas said in a joint interview. "It would literally be the same if she were next door. We really don't miss a beat."
So far this year McComas has argued five times for Unified Patents LLC, X Corp. and Acufloor LLC, and Oliver has argued twice for Unified Patents. The Federal Circuit returned six clear victories and one indirect one. …
The indirect win was a joint appeal in litigation where Snap Inc., Meta Platforms Inc. and X had successfully invalidated a Xerox Corp. content delivery patent at the PTAB. The Federal Circuit upheld the invalidation, but only by addressing a dispositive argument from Snap.
That case exemplified McComas' skill, Haynes Boone partner Scott Jarratt said. Snap and Meta went first in oral arguments, and at McComas' turn to argue for X she made a rare one-word argument: "Ditto."
"By the time the judges got to her, she could tell [they] were squarely on her side and had heard enough," Jarratt said. "The confidence to have the insight and then to use it in a clever way, that's her in a nutshell."
Cooley LLP partner Heidi Keefe was in that courtroom, arguing for Meta. In addition to courtroom overlap, Keefe said she's worked with McComas and Oliver as co-counsel or to advise each other in litigation when they share a client.
The "ditto" moment stood out to her as powerful.
"I deeply respected Debbie's ability to suss out how important 'less is more' was to that panel of judges at that moment," Keefe said. "She rightfully has a confidence in her ability to read a room that inures to her client's benefit. I always admire when a lawyer is willing to shut up instead of talk themselves into a problem."
Read the full Law360 article here.
