Savannah Carnes is a trial lawyer whose practice focuses on complex intellectual property litigation, including patent, trademark, and trade secret disputes.  Savannah has won nearly $800 million at trial for her clients. 

Savannah’s interest in trial work began in Texas, where she clerked for the Honorable Amos L. Mazzant, III, at the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas.  During her time in the patent capital of the country, Savannah spent a quarter of her clerkship in trial, seeing 12 trials from start to finish.  Savannah then focused on trials from a different perspective when she clerked for the Honorable Richard G. Taranto at the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.

Savannah uses these experiences to punch above her weight in private practice.  She has written briefs on issues ranging from summary judgment, discovery disputes, evidentiary exclusion, sanctions, claim construction, equitable relief, 12(b)(6), damages, and verdict preservation.  Indispensable at trial, she argued evidentiary objections and jury instructions in a patent case resulting in a $525 million verdict against Amazon.  Savannah is the rare attorney who can talk to East Texas juries, write for the Federal Circuit, and get down to brass tacks with corporate.

Savannah studied biochemistry at U.C. Berkeley and returned for law school on a technology-law scholarship.  She earned top marks in trial advocacy and evidence, and twice won a regional moot court competition.

In her free time, she enjoys woodworking and reading novels with strong female leads.

Representative Matters

• Secured a $525 million patent infringement verdict for Kove IO against Amazon Web Services, taking the lead on in-court legal arguments and jury instructions. The Kove patents provide foundational technology needed to run Amazon.com and Amazon’s massively used cloud storage infrastructure. The win scored the largest patent verdict of 2024 to date and top 10 of the past decade, and Law360 named the trial team “Legal Lions of the Week.”

• Secured a $272.5 million patent infringement verdict for Ravgen against testing giant LabCorp.  Ravgen’s patents provide non-invasive prenatal genetic testing.

• Represented the Humane Society of the United States in false advertising case against Smithfield Farms.

Rankings & Honors 

• Law360, Legal Lions of the Week (April 12, 2024)

Media Highlights 

• “Landing a $525M Patent Verdict Against Amazon Web Services,” The American Lawyer, April 19, 2024

• “Software Co’s $525 Million Verdict against Amazon Web Services Is One of the Decade’s Largest Awards,” IAM, April 18, 2024

Publications

• Coauthor, “Federal Circuit Report: Recent Opinion in VLSI Technology LLC v. Intel Corporation,” New Matter (Spring 2024 Edition)

• Author, “The ITC Should Defer to the PTAB on Patentability,” Calif. L. Rev. Blog (July 2020)