Ashok Ramani
Head of IP Litigation practice. Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers. Focuses on patent and trade-secret litigation and investigations.
Ashok heads our IP Litigation practice. A Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers, he has represented leading technology and healthcare companies including Comcast, Magnolia Medical, OpenAI, Pfizer and TSMC. Leading publications including Chambers USA and the Daily Journal recognize him as among the country’s best IP trial lawyers.
For his plaintiff clients, he has secured over $800 million in collected judgments and settlement payments (not simply verdicts only a fraction of which are ever paid). For his defendant clients, he has repeatedly secured complete defense verdicts at trial before juries and judges in cases in which the plaintiff sought billions or hundreds of millions in damages.
Outside of Davis Polk, Ashok serves on the boards of Bay Legal and the Association of Business Trial Lawyers-Northern California.
Experience
- Lead trial counsel for plaintiff Magnolia Medical Technologies in patent litigation in the District of Delaware against Kurin, Magnolia’s sole competitor in the field of Initial Specimen Diversion Devices. After a one-week trial, the jury found that Kurin infringed Magnolia’s three patents, rejected Kurin’s invalidity defenses, found that Magnolia did not infringe Kurin’s counterclaim patent, and awarded a $1.25 per-unit royalty.
- Go-to lead trial counsel for Comcast in patent matters:
- Lead trial counsel in litigation brought by Touchstream Technologies in the Eastern District of Texas, which settled favorably shortly before closing argument.
- Lead trial counsel in a case in which the court in the Middle District of Florida granted Comcast JMOL shortly before closing argument and which is heading to retrial in 2026.
- Lead trial counsel in litigation brought by Entropic Communications in the Central District of California, in which Comcast won repeated motions to dismiss and secured a favorable claim construction before settlement.
- Lead trial counsel for Comcast in several patent litigations against Rovi in multiple federal district courts, the ITC, the Federal Circuit, and the U.S. Supreme Court in which Rovi asserted 37 patents over four-plus years.
- Lead trial counsel for Pfizer in multiple trade-secret cases, including one that resulted in a TRO and preliminary injunction for Pfizer and another with a substantial global settlement for Pfizer.
- Successfully defended Signify Health against a trade-secret preliminary injunction and other claims by CareCentrix in Delaware federal court.
- Defended TSMC against ITC investigation initiated by Innovative Foundry Technologies on five semiconductor foundry patents.
- Prepared ITC complaint for large multinational client accusing competitor of infringing four patents. Received OUII approval for filing shortly before parties entered into a cross license.
- Have advised several clients, from technology multinationals to biopharma startups, as to alleged trade-secret misappropriation by newly hired executives and have overseen related internal investigations.
- As lead trial counsel, successfully defended Netflix and Roku at trial against Rovi in the ITC and in follow-on district-court litigation that resulted in all asserted Rovi patents being found invalid.*
* Selected representations before joining Davis Polk
News
Recognition
Forbes – “America’s Top Lawyers,” 2025
American College of Trial Lawyers – Fellow
Chambers USA – Intellectual Property
Chambers USA – Intellectual Property: Patent Litigation, California
IAM Patent 1000 – California, Gold Band
IAM Global Leaders
Benchmark Litigation – California, Star
Legal 500 U.S. – Leading Trial Lawyers
Managing IP – National and California, Patent Star
Daily Journal – “Top Intellectual Property Lawyers in California,” 2014-2024
Lawdragon – 500 Leading Litigators in America, 2024-2026
Best Lawyers – Intellectual Property and Patent Litigation
Education
- cum laude
- with high honors
- Phi Beta Kappa
Clerkships
Prior experience
- Partner, Keker, Van Nest & Peters, 2006-2018
- Associate, Keker & Van Nest, 2003-2005
- Associate, Howard, Rice, Nemrovski, Canady, Falk & Rabkin, 2000-2002
- Associate, Latham & Watkins, 1998-1999
Qualifications and admissions
- State of California
- U.S. Court of Appeals, Federal Circuit
- U.S. Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit
- U.S. District Court, C.D. California
- U.S. District Court, Colorado