Accolade

The American Lawyer magazine today announced that Winston & Strawn's Intellectual Property team was chosen as one of four finalists for The American Lawyer's 2009 IP Litigation Department of the Year. AmLaw's editorial team considered scores of nominations submitted to it from the largest law firms in the United States before choosing the finalists.

Winston & Strawn has traditionally exhibited "deep expertise in handling patent cases for generic drug makers," the magazine observed. Its editors also attributed much of the firm's more recent success to what IP practice chair James Hurst called a "strategic" decision to expand its IP group into such cutting-edge areas as new media: "While few firms can credibly argue that their litigation wins [now] affect how we all use the Internet, Winston & Strawn can make that claim – more than once."

Particularly impressive, The American Lawyer said, were partner Michael Elkin's recent victories on behalf of Veoh Networks, Inc., a San Diego-based online video company, and on behalf of Yahoo! Inc.'s Launchcast service. The article also cited partner Andrew Bridges' work defending techn companies in the Perfect 10 suits.

According to the magazine, Winston's core patent practice also "kept rolling" in recent months, helping clients Barr and Hospira, Inc., bust or dodge patents, respectively, on the popular Yasmin birth control pill and Eloxatin, an anticancer drug that generated $1.5 billion in sales for Sanofi-Aventis U.S. LLC last year.

"The blend of new work and old looks to be coming together," The American Lawyer concluded.