Hon. John C. Lifland (Ret.) is highly regarded by counsel for his exceptional ability to handle complex litigation. He is perceived by parties as being well prepared, knowledgeable, courteous, and a consummate professional. Prior to his 19 years of distinguished service in the federal judiciary at the United States District Court, District of New Jersey, he was in private practice for 27 years concentrating on commercial litigation including antitrust, employment, construction, banking, intellectual property, and securities matters.
ADR Experience and Qualifications
- Facilitated settlement negotiations involving a full range of issues including:
- Antitrust
- Banking
- Business
- Class action
- Complex commercial
- Employment
- Environmental
- Government agencies
- Healthcare
- Insurance
- Intellectual property: patents, copyrights, trademarks, unfair competition, and licensing
- Pharmaceuticals/Mass torts
- Securities
- During the last several years while serving on the federal bench, cases presided over were mostly civil with an emphasis on intellectual property matters and included multidistrict litigation
- Managed such cases to settlement or judgment, and his decisions included resolving challenges to validity and enforceability of patents on various brand-name drugs by generic drug manufacturers, questions of infringement in such cases and, questions of patent validity, infringement, and damages in other varied contexts including consumer products, construction materials, and electronic devices. His work also included evaluating infringement issues in trademark and copyright cases and resolving various issues in securities litigation.
Representative Matters
- Admiralty: Presided over admiralty personal injury trials
- Antitrust: Presided over In re Neurontin Antitrust Litigation (multidistrict)
- Bankruptcy: Addressed rights of mortgagees in bankruptcy litigation
- Civil Rights: Presided over litigation against municipality, addressed rights of developer and municipality; Deciding Fair v. Rumsfeld, involving the First Amendment in the military recruiting context which was upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States
- Employment/Labor: Presided over numerous trials alleging improper discharge and addressed issues regarding confirmation of arbitration awards, ERISA, and rights of former union-represented employees to lifetime benefits
- Environmental: Addressed insurance coverage issues, water and air pollution responsibility issues, and penalty issues
- Healthcare: Cases involving off-label marketing by pharmaceutical companies, nursing home reimbursement under Medicaid, and medical malpractice
- Insurance: Wrote opinion resolving automobile coverage issues when sitting by designation on Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit
- Intellectual Property:
- Patent litigation: Wrote opinion addressing on-sale bar to patentability when sitting by designation on Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit; presided over Pfizer et al. v. Teva Pharms. USA, No. 04-754 (D. N.J. 2007) and In re Gapabentin Patent Litigation (multidistrict)
- Addressed liability of search engine for alleged trademark violations
- Addressed many likelihood of confusion issues in trademark litigations
- Securities: Presided over litigation alleging securities fraud against short sellers, addressed obligations of various parties having differing roles in transactions, such as issuer, accountants, and underwriters