Fish & Richardson's deep expertise in intellectual property law means it can handle a client's patent dispute whether it lands in court or at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

That depth helps Fish know when to pursue creative strategies. In April 2014, the firm won a precedential U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit order for medical device company Volcano Corp., now a subsidiary of Netherlands-based Koninklijke Philips N.V., on a motion to dismiss St. Jude Medical Inc.'s patents claims for lack of jurisdiction. The patent at issue relates to tiny guide wires used to take cardiac measurements.

The court held that St. Jude could not appeal the patent office's decision not to conduct a so-called inter partes review, or an evaluation of the validity of a Volcano patent. In a standard appeal, the jurisdictional question would have been just one of the issues, said Fish partner Frank Scherkenbach. “It is a strategic decision to be made,” he said.