Garrard R. Beeney

Garrard Beeney is co-head of the Firm’s Intellectual Property and Technology Group and a member of the Firm’s Managing Partners Committee. Mr. Beeney has been inducted as a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers. He is counsel in the two major patent cases to be argued before the U.S. Supreme Court in 2016.

Mr. Beeney has litigated intellectual property and licensing cases throughout the country in both federal and state courts. Mr. Beeney also represents clients before U.S. and European competition law authorities, particularly in the area of the intersection between intellectual property and competition laws. In addition to trying patent and antitrust cases, Mr. Beeney has argued appellate cases in various courts, including in the U.S. Supreme Court, the Federal Circuit and the Second Circuit Courts of Appeal, and the Supreme Court of Arkansas. He represents both plaintiffs and defendants in infringement actions, and advises plaintiffs on patent selection in pre-suit due diligence. Mr. Beeney also frequently advises on licensing issues and IP monetization, and has represented patent holders in the formation of licensing pools, including those related to the AVC, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DVD, LTE, ATSC, VC-9, IEEE 1394 and other technologies. 

In addition to the “Litigator of the Week” award noted below, Mr. Beeney has been recognized as one of the “Top 10 Oral Advocates of the Year” in the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals, as an “Innovative U.S. Lawyer” by the Financial Times and in IAM Patent 1000 – The World’s Leading Patent Practitioners (2014, 2015), which commented that Mr. Beeney is “one of the best in the business.” IAM added that peers comment, “When there is something you can’t do, you send it to him.” The 2014 edition of IAM added that Mr. Beeney is “one of the best trial lawyers on the planet”, and he “sounds the part, looks the part, is always prepared and persuasive, with especially brilliant opening and closing presentations.” He is a recipient of the Burton Award for legal scholarship, and has received the Adele Warnock and other awards for his community service.

Mr. Beeney also is regularly recognized as a leading lawyer in the intellectual property and antitrust fields, among others, by leading industry publications, including The Best Lawyers in America, The Legal 500 United States and New York Super Lawyers.

Mr. Beeney has been a speaker at various professional associations, including the American Intellectual Property Law Association, the American Bar Association, the Licensing Executives Society and Law Seminars International. He has written and contributed chapters to several books, including Business and Commercial Litigation in Federal Courts, Commercial Litigation in New York State Courts and On the Merits: Current Issues in Competition Law and Policy. Mr. Beeney has taught various trial advocacy courses, including serving as a member of the faculty at the National Trial Skills Program of the National Institute for Trial Advocacy. He is also a member of Law360’s 2013 Intellectual Property Editorial Advisory Board. 

Mr. Beeney’s public service activities include having served for more than a decade as the deputy mayor of Irvington, New York. He is chairman of the board of Mercado Global, a not-for-profit working to improve the lives of impoverished artisans in Central America, and he regularly represents clients in pro bono litigation, including in a recent successful First Amendment trial and in a matter involving child adoption in Arkansas, the latter of which he successfully argued before the Supreme Court of Arkansas in March 2011.