Welcome to Skilled in the Art. I'm Law.com IP reporter Scott Graham. Here's what's crossing my desk today:

• Fish & Richardson associate makes her first argument to the Federal Circuit, minus visual cues.

• Goodwin Procter and MoFo are gearing up to brawl in the Waymo v. Uber of mobile streaming.

• Thanks for saving cancer patients' lives, Gilead Sciences. Now pay $389 million in enhanced damages.

As always, you can email me your feedback and follow me on Twitter.

Fish & Richardson associate Nitika Gupta Fiorella.

It's another week, another NextGen story for Fish & Richardson. Associate Nitika Gupta Fiorella, age 33, made her first argument to the Federal Circuit on Monday. And she did it in the improvised setting of a telephone conference call, as the appellate court, like courts everywhere, has put live hearings on hold during the coronavirus pandemic.

"The Court did a great job in getting everything set up and running through the logistics with all the arguing attorneys ahead of time," Fiorella said. "And, in the end, no calls dropped, and everything ran smoothly."

Fiorella is litigating Clarus Therapeutics v. Lipocine, an appeal from an interference proceeding over formulations of testosterone esters. On the appeal with her is Fish senior partner John Dragseth. He says he's second-chaired about a half-dozen appeals where the first chair is a first-time arguer, "and have never had a problem, or even angina." He says his basic role is to keep repeating "You've got this."

Fiorella says Dragseth actually was instrumental with mock arguments and helping prepare "a cheat sheet" of the most important record cites, case law cites and quotes to support her argument. The list came in handy when Judge Timothy Dyk began quizzing her about where exactly the Patent Trial and Appeal Board had adopted Lipocene's precise theory of written description.

Fiorella pointed to page 21 of the board's opinion.

"Where" on page 21, Dyk asked. Fiorella read the passage.

"Have you got anything better than this language on 21?" Dyk pressed.

Fiorella read from page 31. "Again, your honor, I would say that what the board is saying here is there are simply too many decisions to be made, and there are not enough guideposts … to tell a skilled artisan that, yes, this is what the inventors invented," Fiorella told the court.

Fiorella isn't new to the Federal Circuit. She clerked for Chief Judge Sharon Prost and has supported Fish colleagues from counsel's table at the court. She says she did miss having the opportunity to stand up in person in court, but did the next best thing—she actually stood up while speaking into the phone from her home office, then sat down when her time was up.

The hardest part was not being able to see the judges' reactions. "When you're in person, you can take your cue from the judges' body language and adjust accordingly," she said. "Along the same lines, it was hard to tell on the phone when to move on to a new topic—I didn't want to move on too quickly, and cut off one of the judges from asking a question. But, if they didn't have questions, I wanted to be sure to use my time wisely and move to my next point."

It all worked out well for Fiorella, Dragseth and Lipocine. On Wednesday the court summarily affirmed the PTAB's ruling. And no, she didn't mind getting a ruling without a written opinion. "My client was certainly happy to not only get a positive result, but to find out so quickly," she said.

Goodwin Procter and MoFo Clash Over Quibi

Quibi arrived this week, but IP litigation over the mobile-only streaming platform is already in full bloom.

Jeffrey Katzenberg and Meg Whitman's $1.75 billion venture is embroiled in patent and trade secret litigation with Israeli media company Eko. It's kind of like Waymo v. Uber for mobile streaming, with Uber's primary law firm taking a leading role.

Eko alleges that it held discussions with Quibi and with Snap about Eko's technology for seamlessly switching between horizontal and vertical screen modes. Quibi then hired two employees from Snap who would become named inventors on Quibi's patented technology. Eko alleges that it was negotiating to partner with Quibi as recently as the day before Katzenberg and Whitman introduced Quibi to the world at January's CES conference.

Quibi, which has filed a DJ complaint, is "looking to make a name for itself and to capitalize on Quibi's early acclaim by making demonstrably false claims of intellectual property infringement." Quibi says its technology, which it calls Turnstyle, is materially different from Eko's and was developed independently. Quibi demonstrated Turnstyle to Eko a year ago—but rather than complain then about infringement, an Eko executive emailed Quibi that she "loved your demo."

A Goodwin Procter team featuring partners Neel Chatterjee and Darryl Woo is representing Eko and its corporate parent JBF Interlude 2009 Ltd.—Israel, along with associates Cindy Chang, Elizabeth Low and Hong-An Vu.

Morrison & Foerster partners Michael Jacobs and Benjamin Fox represent Quibi Holdings along with associate Soo Park.

Eko is asking U.S. District Judge John Kronstadt to enjoin Quibi's use of the Turnstyle feature under the Defend Trade Secrets Act. Kronstadt has set a hearing for May 4.

Willful, Wanton and Life Saving

Gilead Sciences' Yescarta cancer treatment might have been a matter of life or death, but that couldn't save it from $389 million in enhanced damages for willful infringement.

U.S. District Judge James Otero tacked on the enhancement in an order made public earlier this week in Juno Therapeutics v. Kite Pharma. That led to a final judgment of $1.2 billion for Juno, which is now owned by Bristol-Myers Squibb, and the Sloan Kettering Institute for Cancer Research.

Jurors awarded $752 million in December for infringement of Sloan Kettering's patent on a living drug that trains a patient's immune system to attack cancer cells. Gilead launched its infringing Yescarta treatment in 2017 after acquiring it from Kite, with full knowledge that it was going to get sued, Otero wrote.

Gilead argued that Juno didn't have FDA approval for its own treatment. In the meantime, Yescarta has been provided to more than 2,250 cancer patients, "many of whom otherwise faced a certain death sentence," Otero acknowledged.

Nevertheless, Gilead's conduct was "wanton, malicious" and in bad faith. "That Defendant's therapy is life-saving does not provide Defendant a pass," Otero wrote. "Defendant had the option of taking a license or designing around the '190 Patent, but chose not to take either option."

Juno and Kite are represented by Irell & Manella and Jones Day. Irell partner Morgan Chu and Jones Day partner Andrea Weiss Jeffries headline the team. Munger Tolles & Olson and Fish & Richardson represent Gilead.

That's all from Skilled in the Art this week. I'll see you all again on Tuesday.