Ranjini Acharya Named Patent Litigator of the Year

Pillsbury was also recognized as a recipient of the Impact Case of the Year (United States) award for its representation of Fox Corp. in litigation against Recentive Analytics. The matter was led and argued by Acharya, whose team secured a precedential appellate ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirming a defense victory for the client. In its decision, the court held that four patents asserted by Recentive Analytics covering machine learning-backed methods for dynamical updating of television schedules were not eligible for patent protection.

The case of first impression addressed critical issues of patent eligibility under the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2014 Alice decision, which established that abstract ideas are not patentable. Notably, this marks the first time the Federal Circuit has ruled in patent eligibility in the context of machine learning, a subset of AI.

In addition to Acharya, the Pillsbury team included Michael Zeliger, Evan Finkel and Michael Horikawa. The case was Recentive Analytics Inc. v. Fox Corp. et al., 23-2437, in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.

The Managing IP Awards program is widely regarded as one of the most comprehensive and respected intellectual property law firm awards programs in the legal industry. The annual Americas Awards honor firms, individuals and matters that have demonstrated excellence and innovation in intellectual property law over the past year.

To see the full list of winners, click here.