Our runners up for Litigator of the Week  include Jones Day litigators Steve Sozio, Laura Laemmle-Weidenfeld, and Rajeev Muttreja for winning dismissal of a giant qui tam action against Medhost, a developer of electronic medical record software. 

Whistleblowers claimed that the company submitted hundreds of millions of dollars in false claims to the Department of Health and Human Services for federal incentive payments under the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act.

A federal judge in the Southern District of Florida dismissed the case with prejudice, ruling that "even when construing the universe of facts presented in light most favorable to the relators, the court is unable to reasonably infer that the defendants have engaged in the alleged misconduct."

Weil Gotshal & Manges partners Ed Reines and Doug McClellan won a pair of crucial preliminary injunctions for Illumina in a global patent fight over DNA sequencing with its major competitor, Chinese conglomerate BGI. The injunctions put the brakes on BGI's billion-dollar plan to launch competing DNA sequencers in the U.S.

It was the capstone of a stellar week for Reines, who also won a $500,000 attorney fee award in a patent MDL he defeated last year on summary judgment for HP Inc. In addition, he prevailed in a Federal Circuit appeal for LiquidPower Specialty Products Inc. 

At Sidley Austin, Eric Solovy and Iain Sandford successfully represented the State of Qatar in a groundbreaking IP fight before the World Trade Organization. The duo convinced the WTO for the first time to recognize that a government—in this case Saudi Arabia—should be held accountable for its failure to bring criminal charges against beoutQ, which allegedly transmitted pirated content from broadcasters and sports leagues worldwide.

Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher partners Tom Hungar and Amir Tayrani scored for Nasdaq, challenging the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's "pilot program" that capped or eliminated fees and rebates for trades executed for randomly selected securities on the national securities exchanges. 

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit unanimously vacated the SEC rule, holding that "Nothing in the Commission's rulemaking authority authorizes it to promulgate a 'one-off' regulation … merely to secure information that might indicate to the SEC whether there is a problem worthy of regulation."

At Davis Wright Tremaine, a team led by Liz McNamara and Linda Steinman won a speedy victory for the book publishing industry against Internet Archive (best known for its Wayback Machine). McNamara and Steinman's clients sued Internet Archive in connection with its "Open Library" project—which makes entire scanned books available for digital download for free—alleging that it amounts to "willful digital piracy on an industrial scale." 

During the pandemic, Internet Archive upped its library project, launching a "National Emergency Library" that allegedly allowed the download of over a million books to as many people as wished to read them. Less than two weeks after the suit was filed, Internet Archive closed the library.

Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan's Brian Cannon and Robert Stone persuaded the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit to reverse the dismissal of an IP lawsuit that accused Palmer Luckey of stealing the prototype virtual reality headset that became the Oculus Rift. The ruling means that the suit by Quinn Emanuel clients Total Recall Technologies and Israeli inventor Ron Igra is likely headed to trial.

Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom's Jay Kasner and Scott Musoff struck again, winning the dismissal with prejudice of a securities class action against Mueller Water Products. U.S. District Judge Lewis Liman in Manhattan found that the company did not make any false or misleading statements that caused its stock price to fall. 

Greenberg Traurig partner Jonathan Sulds racked up a win behalf of Bed Bath & Beyond Inc..  He convinced the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit that the company lawfully paid its department managers pursuant to the "fluctuating workweek" method. 

Finally, a shout-out to Simpson Thacher & Bartlett for a pro bono appellate win on behalf of a disabled woman and her son whose landlord illegally overcharged them rent for more than a decade.

Kudos to partner Joe McLaughlin and associates Rachel Sparks Bradley and Amy Dawson for taking on a case that wasn't high profile or glamorous, but that makes a real difference to people who were being taken advantage of.