Sharon R. Smith

Associate

Sharon R. Smith is an associate in Morgan Lewis's Litigation and Intellectual Property Practices. Ms. Smith focuses her practice on complex trials and litigation often involving intellectual property. In particular, she has nearly one decade of experience representing clients in hundreds of copyright and trademark matters.

Ms. Smith was recently a key part of Morgan Lewis's trial team in its representation of Asahi Kasei Pharma Corp. in San Mateo County, Superior Court. In that case, the team obtained a $577 million verdict for Asahi after a three-month jury trial. At the time, the verdict was the second largest jury verdict in the United States for 2011.

Ms. Smith has broad civil litigation experience in counseling and disputes related to intellectual property, business torts, unfair business practices, fraud, defamation and breach of contract. Her intellectual property experience includes counseling, prosecution, and litigation involving trademarks, trade dress, domain names, copyrights, advertising, unfair competition and rights of publicity. Ms. Smith has been a key part of other Morgan Lewis trial teams over her career, including:

• Successful prosecution of claims for pharmaceutical company in an arbitration in 2009, in favor of our client for $91 million;
• Successful defense verdict in 2005 on motion for dismissal during trial for client in case involving a $450 million claim for misappropriation of corporate opportunity, among others;
• Successful defense of leading direct marketing company in multi-million dollar case alleging copyright infringement, trade dress infringement, and false advertising claims; and
• Successful jury verdict in trade dress infringement claim.

Other key litigation representations include:

• Successful grant of summary judgment in favor of client against trademark infringement claim.
• Successful grant of motion to dismiss in favor of client against Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), fraud, unfair business practices and tortious interference claims.
• Successful defense of a defamation claim based on a novel Communications Decency Act defense.

Ms. Smith worked as an extern to Judge Alex R. Munson of the U.S. District Court for the Northern Mariana Islands. Prior to attending law school, Ms. Smith worked as an analyst at the Judicial Council of California.

In 2002, Ms. Smith earned her J.D. from the University of California, Davis School of Law, where she was a senior executive editor of the UC Davis Law Review. She earned her B.A. from the University of California, Berkeley in 1997.

Ms. Smith is admitted to practice in California.