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Community Spotlights

Community Spotlight: Phil Goter, Partner, Intellectual Property Group, Barnes & Thornburg

By John Freund |
October 8, 2024

Community Spotlight: Phil Goter, Partner, Intellectual Property Group, Barnes & Thornburg

Clients trust Phillip Goter to enforce and manage their valuable intellectual property. Phil counsels organizations – ranging from startups to Fortune 100 companies – around the world, managing litigation through trial and appeal, thoughtfully obtaining patents and trademarks, conducting pre-suit investigations, advising on regulatory issues, conducting due diligence and freedom to operate analyses, and resolving complex disputes.

Phil leverages his business and industry experience when working with his clients, and they value his strategic thinking and trust his counsel regarding IP strategies that protect R&D investment and product markets.

Phil, who practices in the firm’s Minneapolis office, frequently works with high-tech clients in the computer software and hardware space. His keen familiarity with computer hardware, standards-essential cellular infrastructure, 5G, GPS, mobile apps, autonomous vehicles, artificial intelligence, machine learning, computer and network security, VoIP, wireless networking, home automation, medical devices, and cloud computing aid him in providing successful outcomes for his clients.

He has deep experience providing counsel to international businesses on U.S. intellectual property matters, including representing European and Asian consumer electronics, networking and telecommunications, and pharmaceutical companies in global IP disputes. His practice includes patent litigation in U.S. district courts around the country and before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, with the majority in key patent litigation venues such as Texas, Delaware, and California.

Phil also has significant experience with complex economic matters and his cases have included competition law issues, such as monopolization, attempted monopolization, and Walker Process and sham litigation claims. He has successfully obtained lost profits verdicts in pharmaceutical cases and has commissioned and used numerous expert surveys in litigation to prove infringement, indirect infringement, rates of infringement, apportionment, lost profits, and value of the invention.

He also has in-house counsel experience. Prior to joining Barnes & Thornburg, Phil was an investment manager and legal counsel for a global, publicly traded litigation finance and legal risk management company. He advanced the company’s IP initiatives globally and handled U.S. litigation matters through the entire life cycle of the litigation funding relationship, including sourcing, evaluating, and monitoring IP and commercial investments through to resolution.

Outside of his legal practice, Phil teaches intellectual property at the University of Minnesota Law School and can often be found at the hockey rink, coaching his three children’s youth hockey teams.

Company Name and Description: With more than 800 attorneys and other legal professionals, Barnes & Thornburg is one of the largest law firms in the country. We serve clients worldwide from offices in Atlanta, Boston, California, Chicago, Delaware, Indiana, Michigan, Minneapolis, Nashville, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Philadelphia, Raleigh, Salt Lake City, South Florida, Texas and Washington, D.C. We provide guidance in more than 50 dedicated practice areas, including litigation, intellectual property, labor and employment and corporate law. We are where you need us. Find out more at btlaw.com.

Company Website: btlaw.com

Year Founded: 1982

Headquarters: Largest office is in Indianapolis

Area of Focus: Intellectual property

Member Quote: Litigation finance has become an increasingly important financial tool for IP owners, who often find themselves disadvantaged by large, well-capitalized competitors. In this lopsided dynamic, non-recourse capital from trusted legal funders gives me the ability to right the harms inflicted upon my clients.

About the author

John Freund

John Freund

Commercial

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Commercial

Commentary Frames Litigation Finance as the Last Preservation Tool for Inventor Estates

A new commentary argues that the debate over funder disclosure in patent cases is not really about transparency at all, but about whether an independent inventor's family retains the value of what the inventor spent a career building.

As reported by IPWatchdog, the piece is written by Scott Moskowitz, founder of Blue Spike and Wistaria Trading and a named inventor on more than 110 patents. His starting point is that patents are inheritable property with twenty-year terms that outlast careers, yet the US enforcement architecture strips their value while owners are alive.

Moskowitz points to empirical work measuring the market reaction to inter partes review petitions, including a one-day abnormal return of roughly -12% following the first Hayman Capital challenge in 2015. A public company absorbs that as a bad quarter. For an inventor whose net worth is a portfolio, he argues, the same drop is a retirement, and the depressed figure becomes the only number available when the estate is later valued.

The commentary contrasts patents with other asset classes. Real estate, operating-company equity and art each have financing vehicles, insurance products and secondary markets. Patents have none at scale, because no lender will take collateral exposed to a PTAB invalidation rate of 61% to 70%.

Against that backdrop, the piece argues that litigation finance filled the gap because nothing else could, and that pending disclosure measures would remove it. It singles out the March 2026 rules suggestion before the Advisory Committee on Civil Rules, the USITC's proposed 19 C.F.R. § 210.14a, and S.3826, the Litigation Funding Transparency Act of 2026.

Moskowitz's proposed alternative is symmetry: treat funder disclosure the way Rule 26 and Rule of Evidence 411 already treat insurance, with mandatory disclosure on both sides paired with a restriction on using it to prove the merits.

Commercial

High Court Refuses to Stay Mariana Dam Litigation as Representation Fight Heads to Open Court

The High Court has declined to pause the Mariana dam litigation against BHP while a dispute over who represents the claimants is resolved, keeping the case on its existing timetable.

As reported by Legal Futures, the court rejected an application by Bailey Glasser International to stay proceedings. Pogust Goodhead, which acts for more than 400,000 claimants over the 2015 Fundão dam collapse in Brazil, characterised the outcome as its first victory in the representation dispute.

The court also directed that the underlying dispute over representation be determined at an expedited hearing on 5 and 6 October. Notably, it rejected Bailey Glasser International's request that the hearing be held in private, meaning the arguments over control of one of the largest group claims in English legal history will be aired publicly.

The ruling preserves the existing case management timetable, including the quantum trial listed for April 2027.

Pogust Goodhead chief executive Alicia Alinia said: "The ruling is an important win for our clients. The court has rejected any attempt to delay this litigation and confirmed that the timetable towards justice remains intact." She added that after almost 11 years, the claimants "deserve clarity, not delay."

The outcome matters beyond the parties. The Mariana claim is among the most heavily funded pieces of group litigation in the English courts, and a prolonged stay would have pushed back recovery timelines for the capital deployed behind it. Bailey Glasser International and the client committee were approached for comment.

Commercial

Woodville Administrators Report £298.7M in Claims Against £254,734 in Cash

Administrators for collapsed litigation lender Woodville have filed their formal statement of proposals, and the arithmetic is stark: unsecured creditor claims of £298,681,307 set against £254,734 of cash in the business.

As reported by the Law Society Gazette, Robert Goodhew and Andrew Stoneman of Kroll Advisory told creditors that Woodville's directors have yet to answer basic questions regarding the use of investor funds. The administrators concluded that rescuing the company as a going concern is not practicable. Administration began on 16 July.

The proposals describe a loan book concentrated on roughly ten law firms and associated entities in Wales and the north-west of England. Only one firm's borrowings appear to be secured. Two of those firms, ASL Boston and McDermott Smith, owe a combined £51.7 million and are themselves in insolvency proceedings.

A further £37 million is owed by parties the administrators describe as connected. That figure includes £17.6 million due from Integrity Protect No 1 Limited, which shares shareholders and directors with Woodville, and £8 million advanced to wholly owned subsidiary Horizon, which entered receivership two weeks before Woodville itself collapsed.

The administrators also flagged that the "performance bonds" issued to retail investors may have been mis-sold or misrepresented, a finding that could shape both regulatory scrutiny and any future recovery claims.

Recoveries so far have been modest. The sale of office furniture raised £650. The administrators' own fee is estimated at £3 million, and they said they are taking advice on enforcement action against directors who have not cooperated with the investigation.