 |
 |
Adrian Pruetz is one of the leading intellectual property and business trial lawyers in the United States. Chambers USA has praised her “effective courtroom style” and “great sense of what will succeed,” describing her as “one of the top ten trademark litigators nationally.” She has been “highly rated for her trial expertise, particularly in trademarks, trade dress, copyrights, patents and related antitrust areas” by Practical Law Company. Over her 27-year career, Ms. Pruetz has been lead counsel for many well-known clients, including Nike, Oracle, Mattel, Roche, K-Swiss, Teledyne, Abbott Laboratories, Red Bull, Fujitsu, Disney, Genentech, Avery Dennison and others. She has tried more than 40 jury and bench trials and argued numerous appeals. Her litigation practice encompasses patent, trademark, trade dress, copyright, unfair competition, false advertising, trade secret and idea theft litigation as well as other business disputes. Ms. Pruetz has been named one of the "top 25 intellectual property attorneys in California" by The Los Angeles Daily Journal, a “star of biotech” by The Los Angeles Business Journal and a “Super Lawyer” by Los Angeles Magazine. She has been featured in California Lawyer in connection with her trademark and copyright litigation practice. In May 2008, Ms. Pruetz led the team that won summary judgment for the Roche companies, invalidating three Stanford University HIV monitoring patents on the ground of obviousness and defeating Stanford’s multimillion dollar infringement claims. In June 2008, as she was about to start a lengthy jury trial for trademark and trade dress infringement as lead counsel for plaintiff K-Swiss, the defendant Payless ShoeSource agreed to pay substantial compensatory damages and to a consent judgment and worldwide injunction prohibiting Payless from making, advertising or selling footwear confusingly similar to footwear sold by K-Swiss. In another widely reported intellectual property case, Ms. Pruetz defended Dic Animation, Hallmark, Disney, Warner Bros. and others against claims that these defendants infringed the copyrights in six scripts allegedly authored by a famous screenwriter. After winning summary judgment in favor of six defendants, she won a unanimous jury verdict at trial in favor of the remaining defendants, upheld on appeal. She also won several million dollars, an injunction and attorneys' fees for plaintiff Mattel in a jury trial over infringement of Mattel's HOT WHEELS trade dress. Ms. Pruetz defended Nike against a claim that its AIR JORDAN XVII basketball shoe infringed a rival shoe company's trade dress and design patent, winning summary judgment of non-infringement, upheld on appeal. Ms. Pruetz has also developed effective licensing and enforcement programs for owners of intellectual property. She is a founder of the University of Southern California IP Institute and a featured speaker on intellectual property issues for USC, Price Waterhouse, Licensing Executives Society and other groups. She has authored several intellectual property articles, including "The Whittling Away of Trademark Dilution: The Road to Mosely and Beyond," California Business Law Practitioner and "Domain Disputes," The Los Angeles Daily Journal. Ms. Pruetz also has tried and won cases in other business areas. She was lead counsel for Hathaway Dinwiddie Construction in a lengthy jury trial over breach of a construction contract and related unfair business practices, winning a jury verdict of several million dollars in compensatory and punitive damages. She defended Disney in a class action over the alleged failure to warn children of the dangers of smoking in G-rated animated films, obtaining a quick dismissal of the case on federal preemption grounds. She defended Fleishman Hillard in connection with a high profile Jack-in-the-Box food contamination suit and was trial counsel for G.D. Searle and Dow Corning in products liability actions involving medical devices. She is the author of "Two for Teamwork," an article on coordination at trial published by The Los Angeles Daily Journal and she has been a featured speaker on trial and arbitration techniques for the Association of Business Trial Lawyers, the Federal Bar Association, Price Waterhouse and the California State Bar. Ms. Pruetz serves as an arbitrator for the Large Complex Case Program of the Commercial Panel of the American Arbitration Association. Prior to forming Pruetz Law Group, Ms. Pruetz was a partner in Quinn Emanuel Urquhart Oliver & Hedges LLP for nearly 13 years, where she founded and chaired the intellectual property litigation practice. Before that, she was a partner in Morrison & Foerster, where she practiced for more than a decade. Ms. Pruetz graduated from Marquette University Law School, magna cum laude, in 1982. She earned her BA from Loyola University of Chicago and took post-graduate courses in the MBA program of the Loyola Graduate School of Business. Ms. Pruetz is a member of the International Trademark Association, NAMWOLF, the Los Angeles IP Inns of Court (where she serves on the Executive Committee) and the American, California and Los Angeles Bar Associations. She is admitted to practice before the United States Supreme Court, Courts of Appeal for the Seventh, Ninth and Federal Circuits, and United States District Courts for the Central, Northern, Southern and Eastern Districts of California, the Northern District of Illinois, the Eastern District of Texas, the District of Colorado and the Eastern and Western Districts of Wisconsin and all California state courts. |
