Fish Principal Frank P. Porcelli Named 2013 "Lawyer of the Year" by Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly

Boston, MA, February 5, 2013 - Fish & Richardson announced today that Frank P. Porcelli, a principal and co-chair of the firm's Appellate Group, has been named a "Lawyer of the Year" by Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly (MLW) for outstanding professional accomplishments. Porcelli will be honored at an event in Boston on March 7, 2013.

According to MLW, Porcelli "helped score a major victory" when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit vacated a $371 million verdict against client W.L. Gore & Associates. MLW went on to note that the decision, which changed the law on willful infringement and set forth a heightened standard that makes willfulness harder to prove, was "far reaching" and will likely affect many patent infringement cases.

At Fish, Porcelli's practice emphasizes patent and trade secret appellate work, particularly in the fields of pharmaceuticals, life sciences, chemistry, and medical devices. He has successfully argued many important appellate patent cases at the Federal Circuit, as well as a landmark case at the Supreme Court of Connecticut on the right to trial by jury in trade secret cases.

Porcelli has taught patent law at Harvard Law School as a Visiting Professor from Practice, and is the author of numerous articles on patent law. He received his J.D. from Harvard Law School in 1971, his M.S. in chemistry from Northeastern University in 1981, and his A.B., magna cum laude, from Boston College in 1968.