Tia Sherringham represents clients in a broad range of complex commercial litigation matters. She graduated from the UC Berkeley School of Law (Boalt Hall) in 2008, where she was a member of the California Law Review and earned a certificate from the Berkeley Center for Law and Technology. In 2004, she graduated Phi Beta Kappa and with departmental honors from Columbia University with a B.A. in European and American history.
Cases of Note
VS Technologies LLC v. Twitter Inc.: By winning a defense verdict in this federal jury trial, we protected Twitter Inc. from a patent infringement suit and $40 million damages claim. Virginia-based VS Technologies had obtained a patent for “an interactive virtual community of famous people,” and sued Twitter over its virtual community technology. During the six-day trial, we argued that Twitter's Browse Interests feature did not infringe the terms of the patent and that in fact, the patent was invalid. The jury agreed, and found Twitter not liable for patent infringement.
Internet Company v. Google: An Internet company based in Lafayette, Louisiana filed suit in its local federal court against Google for trademark infringement and unfair competition. The plaintiff alleged Google's various uses of the term "gadget" infringed the federal trademarks "website gadget" and "gadget." We represented Google, and counterclaimed to cancel both marks as not protectable under either federal or Louisiana law because they are generic or at best descriptive and have not attained secondary meaning. The court agreed with us and granted summary judgment, canceling the marks and dismissing the lawsuit.
PUBLICATIONS
“Mice, Men, and Monsters: Opposition to Chimera Research and the Scope of Federal Regulation,” California Law Review