Michelle E. Armond

Michelle E. Armond is a busy IP trial lawyer with a successful new firm and a keen sense of humor. After co-founding Armond Wilson LLP in 2019, she and her five colleagues vowed to keep it small and still have fun.

"Our secret sauce is that we like to win, and we pride ourselves on the quality of our work. So, we accept just the amount of work we can handle. There's no B team here," she said.

Armond has an electrical engineering degree from Caltech, a former clerkship for Federal Circuit Judge Richard Linn, a strong winning record at the USPTO, a waiting list of would-be clients -- and, she's proud to point out, an honorable mention in Above The Law's 2023 holiday card contest for her Wes Anderson-themed portrayal of the firm's lawyers posed in front of the Grand Budapest Hotel.

"That was a bucket list item, getting recognized by Above The Law," she said.

Armond's stature in patent matters led the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee to invite her to testify last November as it considered reforms to the Patent Trial and Appeal Board in the proposed PREVAIL Act (the acronym stands for Promoting and Respecting Economically Vital American Innovation Leadership).

Among other things, "I advised against a provision designed to add a standing hurdle to curtail the volume of IPRs. I pointed out that's what's driving the increase is simply that people are getting sued a lot," she said.

Last year, Armond prevailed in several high-profile cases for clients such as Holosun, Targus International, and Alpine Electronics Inc.
There was also a major win for Purdue University and a professor there who holds a patent on silicon carbide MOSFET devices used increasingly to control high voltages in next-generation renewable-energy semiconductors.

She defeated the institution of three separate IPR challenges to the patent, then won for a fourth time after PTO director Kathi Vidal ordered a review. STMicroelectronics International and Wolfspeed Inc. v. Purdue University, IPR2022-00252 et al. (USPTO, filed Dec. 6, 2021).

That cleared the way for trial lawyers to persuade a federal jury to award Purdue $32.5 million in compensatory damages against infringers, plus a running royalty on future sales. The Trustees of Purdue University v. STMicroelectronics International N.V., 6:21-cv-00727 (W.D. Tex., filed July 14, 2021).

"We should have gone to Vegas to celebrate, but we didn't," Armond said.

"We just keep winning cases," she added. "Does it get any better than that? If I wasn't having fun, I wouldn't be a lawyer."

--John Roemer