Eric M. Acker is a former federal prosecutor with extensive trial experience. His practice focuses on intellectual property litigation, including patent, trade secret and related licensing disputes. In the past several years, Mr. Acker tried to verdict four patent cases. These trials led to favorable results for Morrison & Foerster clients, including a jury verdict of patent invalidity, a jury verdict of no willfulness, and a court finding of patent unenforceability based on inequitable conduct. In addition, Mr. Acker has obtained multi-million dollar jury verdicts for firm clients in trials in both state and federal court.

Prior to joining Morrison & Foerster in 1999, Mr. Acker was an Assistant United States Attorney in the United States Attorney's Offices for the District of Columbia and the Southern District of California. Mr. Acker tried over 45 jury trials as a federal prosecutor. He currently is the head of litigation for the firm’s San Diego office.

• Maxwell Technologies, Inc. v. NessCap Co., Ltd.: Mr. Acker represents Maxwell Technologies in a patent infringement action involving ultracapacitor technology. In April 2007, the district court in the Southern District of California entered a preliminary injunction in Maxwell’s favor enjoining NessCap from making, using, selling, or offering to sell its prismatic ultracapacitor products.
• McKesson v. Bridge Medical, Inc.: Mr. Acker defended Bridge Medical in a patent action including the use of bar-code technology in bedside patient identification and verification systems. Following trial in May 2006 in the Eastern District of California, the court found the asserted patent unenforceable based on inequitable conduct during its prosecution. The Federal Circuit affirmed the trial court in McKesson Info. Solutions v. Bridge Medical, Inc. 487 F3.d 897 (Fed. Cir. 2007).
• Nichols Institute Diagnostics, Inc. v. Scantibodies Clinical Laboratory, Inc.: Mr. Acker defended Scantibodies, a San Diego-based manufacturer of diagnostic parathyroid hormone assays, through trial in a patent infringement action brought by Nichols Institute Diagnostics. Following a month-long jury trial in 2005 in the Southern District of California, the jury returned a verdict in favor of Scantibodies finding that the asserted patent was invalid on the grounds of lack of written description, enablement and best mode.
• Wellstat Therapeutics Corp. v. The Regents of the University of California: Mr. Acker defended The Regents of the University of California in patent, licensing and trade secret litigation involving the use of a uridine prodrug to treat various metabolic disorders. The matter settled on the eve of trial in San Diego Superior Court with no payment made by The Regents.
• United States v. Kayoko Kimbara: Mr. Acker defended a post-doctoral researcher charged with allegedly violating the federal Economic Espionage Act by purportedly misappropriating trade secrets involving DNA sequences and related proteins from a research laboratory at Harvard University. The government agreed to deferred prosecution.