Samantha Lerner
Partner
Co-Chair, Complex Commercial Litigation Practice
Co-chair of Winston’s Complex Commercial Litigation Practice and co-leader of the Chicago Litigation Group, Samantha is a trial lawyer who concentrates her practice on complex commercial and patent litigation. Her lengthy service as chair of the Chicago office chapter of Winston’s Women’s Leadership Initiative demonstrates her commitment to advancing gender diversity and inclusion in the legal community.
Key Matters
Samantha’s recent representative experience includes the following:
- Currently representing a multinational food processing and commodities trading company in a suite of class action lawsuits in Illinois federal court alleging that the company’s trading in ethanol and ethanol futures violated the Commodity Exchange Act and Sherman Act, in addition to several state-law claims.
- Currently representing an electronics company against allegations of patent infringement related to videoconferencing technology. Plaintiff initially asserted two patents, and Winston successfully invalidated one of the patents on the grounds that the patented concept was not patent eligible under 35 U.S.C. § 101.
- Successfully invalidated the latest expiring patent in a branded pharmaceutical company’s portfolio for the drug Otezla®, effectively shortening the brand’s monopoly by several years to the benefit of Winston’s client, a major generic pharmaceutical company.
- Successfully defended a large financial institution against a patent infringement suit related to its mobile banking technology. After winning a favorable claim construction ruling and motions to strike the plaintiff’s post claim construction infringement theories, the plaintiff agreed to a stipulated dismissal of the case and final judgment in favor of Winston’s client in order to seek an appeal. The Federal Circuit affirmed, providing a decisive win for Winston’s client.
- Obtained a jury trial victory on behalf of an innovator in long term care pharmacy technology in a billion-dollar bet-the-company case. Following a month-long trial, a jury in the Eastern District of Texas rendered its verdict in less than a day, finding against the plaintiff and for Winston’s clients on the plaintiff’s claims for trade secret misappropriation, fraud, and infringement of four patents.
- Obtained an important trial victory for a major generic pharmaceutical company against a branded pharmaceutical company in which the court found that the generic version of the brand drug Axiron® did not infringe one of three asserted patents and that the remaining two asserted patents were invalid. This ruling was upheld by the Federal Circuit.
- Obtained an 8–0 verdict on behalf of a life-sciences company in a retrial of an employment case that had previously resulted in a widely reported US$25.7 million verdict (while being handled by other counsel). At the time, the verdict was one of the largest employment verdicts in Ohio history and was among the top 100 verdicts in the nation in 2002. Winston took over the case in 2006 and obtained two mistrials before trying it for a third time, when the jury rendered a verdict in our client’s favor after an eight-day trial.
Samantha has also successfully represented one of the largest insurance companies in the US in multidistrict litigation defending against antitrust and various state law claims; won an arbitration on behalf of a global healthcare corporation on a complex breach-of-contract matter; procured the return of stolen trade secrets for large branded pharmaceutical companies and financial institutions; and defended a global healthcare corporation in a class action concerning the sale of enteral feeding and nutrition products. Her additional trial experience in the patent realm includes cases involving patents relating to the drugs Emend® IV, Lidoderm®, Temodar®, and Nasacort AQ®.