Alexandrine Ananou

Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan has launched a patent litigation practice in London with the hire of a lawyer from Bird & Bird, ending a decade-long search.

The Los Angeles-headquartered firm has recruited Bird & Bird senior associate Alexandrine Ananou, who becomes the firm's first patent litigator in the City. 

The firm has made no secret of its desire to add a patent litigation specialism to its core litigation practice since launching in London in 2008. However, it has struggled to secure the services of a litigator with the requisite experience, due to the lack of patent litigators at the City's elite firms and challenges presented by conflicts of interest, notably thwarting attempts by the firm to hire out of the magic circle.

The firm has a strong reputation in patent litigation globally, particularly in the US and Germany, and now with the hire of Ananou – who joins the firm this week – Quinn sidesteps the issues that have long hampered it from recruiting effectively in the City.

Partners moving from firm to firm are often subject to onerous restrictive covenants, preventing them from acting for earlier clients. This has meant Quinn has often been contract-barred from bringing in partners whose previous firms have acted in any capacity for clients on the other side of ongoing Quinn litigations.

Examples include Apple's protracted legal battles with Quinn clients Samsung and Qualcomm, for which the firm recently secured a landmark victory in Germany.

While associates in the US are subject to more stringent conflict checks, the UK's regulations around this are not quite as burdensome.

Quinn London managing partner Richard East said: "For a decade we've been trying to solve the patents conundrum in London, without success. But bringing in Alexandrine is, we hope, the first step in solving this."

The office now hopes to grow the patents team "from the bottom up", with a further associate hire expected in the coming months.

Quinn also wants to grow beyond litigation in the City, with ambitions to add on specialisms in competition law and white-collar crime, as well as expanding its arbitration offering, which could see it adding to its 18-strong City partnership.

With a focus on anti-bank litigation, and acting for both claimants and defendants in the ongoing EU-wide trucks litigation and for the claimant in the long-running Mastercard litigation, Quinn's City partners are typically expected to bill between 2,000 and 2,500 hours a year.

Last month, Quinn associates who billed between 2,100 and 2,399 hours in 2018 were paid bonuses starting at $15,000 (£12,000) for the 2017 class, up to $100,000 (£78,000) for the 2011 associates and above.