Our first runners-up this week are Sean Pak, Victoria Maroulis and Kevin Hardy of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan who won a defense verdict for Samsung Electronics Co. in a patent case in the Eastern District of Texas. Samsung's defense team got one patent declared invalid pretrial, persuaded the plaintiff, Evolved Wireless LLC, to drop a second after claim construction, and went to trial on the third. Jurors in Marshall late last month found Evolved hadn't proven that Samsung infringed any of four asserted claims related to 4G-compatible mobile devices including phones, tablets and smartwatches. The defense team also included local counsel Melissa Smith of Gillam & Smith.

Runners-up honors also go to Michael Swartz of Schulte Roth & Zabel and the team representing investor Politan Capital Management in a major Delaware Chancery Court showdown with medical technology company Masimo concerning the limits of advance notice bylaws. Vice Chancellor Nathan Cook last month awarded Politan's team nearly $18 million in fees, finding they "blew this case out of the water in terms of achieving pretty much all of the substantial corporate benefits that it set out to achieve by filing this litigation." Politan had additional counsel at Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft and Morris, Nichols, Arsht & Tunnell. The Schulte team also included Frank Olander, Phil Bezanson, Tom Mott, George Rowe, Daryoush Behbood, Jacqueline Maero Blaskowski, Erika Simonson, Tara Lederer, Shannon Wolf, Tori Pavlock, Ben Lewson, Paul Schochet, Neema Jyothiprakash, Cara Chilton, Spencer Busby, Colleen Cummings, Kevin Scot Johns, Peter White, Taleah Jennings and Andrew Gladstein. 

Rollin Ransom, Lisa Gilford and their team at Sidley Austin get a runners-up nod for fending off a suit seeking $750 million from client UMG Recordings Inc. Members of the hip hop duo Black Sheep—Andres "Dres" Titus and William "Mista Lawnge" McLean—claimed UMG failed to account for equity it received from Spotify in exchange for giving the streaming service lower royalty rates for their music. U.S. District Judge Jennifer Rochon in Manhattan last month dismissed the suit finding that the claims were both untimely and without merit since plain language of the underlying recording contract didn't support the plaintiffs' theories of breach regarding royalties. The Sidley team also included senior associate Lauren De Lilly and associate Monique Candiff.