Home Our Team Nicole S. Cunningham

Nicole S. Cunningham

Principal

• San Diego, CA
• (864) 271-1592
• ncunningham@dority-manning.com

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What you should know about me:

I enjoy serving as D&M’s managing principal for our San Diego based office. I am a trial lawyer representing leading technology companies in high-stakes IP litigation disputes. With nearly 20 years of experience in all aspects of pre-trial, trial, and appellate practice, I enjoy making litigation as painless as possible while achieving the best results…

• Known as a consensus builder who solves client problems with strong relationships
• Avid wakesurfer and traveler who has wakesurfed on two continents
• Prior to law school, researched the effectiveness of dietary curcumin (a component of the spice turmeric) in the prevention of cancer

Nicole’s Experience

Nicole is an experienced litigator. She has successfully represented clients in multiple high-stakes patent, trademark, and trade secret cases before the U.S. district courts, the International Trade Commission, and the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.

Nicole has litigated patent and trade secret cases across a wide range of technical areas including electronics, telecommunications, mechanical, biotech, and medical devices. In the past decade, Nicole has represented clients in over 85 U.S. district courts cases throughout the United States. In addition, Nicole has successfully represented clients in 7 Unfair Import Investigations before the International Trade Commission and has worked on multiple appeals to the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. Nicole has significant expertise in matters involving standards essential patents, unfair competition, FRAND issues, issues involving subject matter eligibility under Section 101 of the U.S. Patent Act, as well as complicated licensing and patent exhaustion issues.

Other aspects of Nicole’s practice involve litigating licensing and related business disputes, including claims involving business interference, breach of contract, fraud, unfair competition, and related issues. She has also succeeded in achieving favorable, high-dollar results for clients through arbitration.

Representative Cases

• Representing Sleep Number, the patent owner in a series of ITC investigations (completed) and district court lawsuits (ongoing), in an enforcement campaign asserting infringement asserting multiple patents relating to air mattresses and air pumps.  Successfully obtained exclusion order at the ITC and district court actions are ongoing.
• Represented ZTE in a patent infringement lawsuit involving LTE handsets. Achieved a highly favorable settlement following successful claim construction.
• Represented HTC and ZTE in 10 separate patent infringement lawsuits involving more than a dozen patents and complicated FRAND, licensing and patent exhaustion issues.  Achieved highly favorable settlement while summary judgment motions were pending.
• Represented Kyocera, Qualcomm, Nokia, and ZTE in 12 District Court cases in 3 jurisdictions, 1 ITC case, and 5 matters before the PTAB, spanning 8 years and involving significantly complex 3G technologies and standards-essential patents.
• Represented Helicos BioSciences Corp. in six-patent enforcement campaign involving single-molecule DNA sequencing technology.