The back-and-forth in the high stakes patent litigation over computer processing technology between VLSI Technology and Intel Corp. has already yielded one Litigator of the Week winner and a runner-up on the plaintiff side for Irell & Manella and one LOTW winner for Intel's defense counsel at Wilmer Cutler Picker Hale and Dorr—all at the trial court in the Western District of Texas. Add another runner-up for Wilmer to the overall scoresheet after this week the Federal Circuit wiped out VLSI's $2.1 billion verdict in the first trial. The appellate court reversed the judgment of infringement on one of the two patents at issue and remanded the case for a damages trial on the other. Wilmer's Bill Lee handled arguments for Intel at the Federal Circuit and he was joined on the briefs by colleagues Alison Burton, Lauren Fletcher, Joseph Mueller, Steven Horn, Amanda Major and Mindy Sooter.

Appellate teams at Baker & Hostetler and Shook Hardy & Bacon get a collective runner-up nod for representing healthcare system Northwestern Memorial HealthCare and medical equipment maker Becton Dickinson respectively at the Illinois Supreme Court in a case involving the state's Biometric Information Privacy Act, which carries a hefty statutory damages of $1,000 per negligent violation. The state's high court last week unanimously found that healthcare workers' use of automated dispensing cabinets that scan fingerprints for access to medicine and supplies fell under an exclusion to BIPA for "information collected, used, or stored for health care treatment, payment, or operations under" the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA, the federal law dealing with private health information. The court's decision overruled the Cook County Circuit Court and a lower appellate court that had allowed BIPA class actions to move forward against the two companies. Baker & Hostetler partners Bonnie Keane DelGobbo and Joel Griswold led the team representing Northwestern with assistance from associate Amy Lenz. Shook Hardy partners Matt Wolfe, Bill Northrip and associate Kathleen Ryan represent Becton Dickinson.

Runners-up honors also go to Eric Mattson, Chris Meyer and their trial team at Sidley Austin who scored a defense win for Gannett Co. in a rare ERISA case to go to trial with a certified class. Plaintiffs claimed the publicly traded newspaper company breached its duties to plan participants by failing to timely liquidate a stock fund invested in TEGNA Inc., the company holding Gannett's former local TV stations and digital properties created during a 2015 spinoff transaction. After a three-day bench trial earlier this year, U.S. District Judge Anthony Trenga in Alexandria, Virginia this week found the company's retirement plan committee engaged in active plan administration. The judge wrote that the committee "acted as a hypothetical prudent fiduciary would have, including by having timely and regular meetings, both with and without advisors, to discuss the risks of maintaining the TEGNA Stock Fund and the risks associated with divestiture." The trial team also included Sidley managing associate Nicole Heise and associate Tommy Hoyt, as well as co-counsel Laurin Mills of Werther & Mills.