Hon. Gregory M. Sleet (Ret.) joins JAMS after serving 20 years on the bench of the United States District Court for the District of Delaware, including seven years as Chief Judge. During Judge Sleet’s tenure on the District Court bench, he gained deep experience in a number of areas of complex commercial litigation, especially patent litigation involving pharmaceutical patents and a wide variety of other technologies. As a neutral, Judge Sleet focuses his practice on mediations, arbitrations and neutral analysis (case evaluation, mock trial).
Judge Sleet is a sought-after speaker on patent litigation. Select examples of speaking engagements include: RPX, the Rocky Mountain Intellectual Property and Technology Institute, the Sedona Conference, the USC Gould School of Law, the New York Intellectual Property Law Association’s (NYIPLA) symposium on patent litigation, the Practising Law Institute, and ACI.
Beginning in 2006-2007, Judge Sleet served as an adjunct professor, teaching patent litigation, at Rutgers Law School, Widener University Delaware Law School and, most recently, Duke University School of Law. Before taking the federal bench in 1998, Judge Sleet acquired varied experience in civil and criminal litigation and corporate legal work. He served as the United States Attorney for the District of Delaware from 1994-1998. He served as in-house counsel in the legal department of Hercules Incorporated (1992–1994) and as deputy attorney general handling major civil cases for the State of Delaware (1990–1992). Prior to that, he practiced law in Philadelphia for 14 years, six of those as an assistant public defender with the Defender Association of Philadelphia.
ADR Experience
During his 20 years on the federal bench, Judge Sleet presided over and resolved by pretrial ruling, trial, or settlement thousands of complex civil cases involving a wide variety of subject matter, including: intellectual property (pharmaceuticals, medical devices, and various technologies); antitrust; bankruptcy; class actions; business/commercial; pharmaceuticals and medical devices; products liability; and securities and tax.
Representative Matters
Judge Sleet’s civil docket included some of the country’s most complex federal litigation in the fields of Intellectual Property, including:
- Antitrust: Presided over multi-week jury trial, with extensive post-trial practice involving claims of various Sherman Act violations by the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP); presided over numerous matters involving claims of monopolization by the misuse of patent rights
- Class Actions: Presided over numerous class action disputes in a variety of areas, such as securities fraud, actions brought on behalf of consumers and others; frequently presided over approval of final settlement of these matters
- Multi-District Litigation (MDL): Presided over at least six MDL actions involving a variety of ANDA and other patent claims
- Patent Litigation: Presided over numerous, frequently multi-week, ANDA trials involving a wide variety of pharmaceuticals, including: Copaxone (glatiramer acetate), the top-selling treatment for multiple sclerosis; Hemlibra, an important drug for the treatment of hemophilia; a drug for the treatment of schizophrenia; and many others; presided over actions involving new and groundbreaking biosimilars (large-molecule drugs) involving such important treatments for cancer as the branded drugs Avastin and Herceptin
- Presided over many jury trials involving a wide variety of technologies, including: mechanical devices such as in-door refrigerator ice makers; auxiliary power units (small jet engines that power an airliner while it’s docked at the gate); a dispute between major manufacturers of vacuum cleaners over suction power claims; medical devices such as transcatheter heart valves; a seminal invention in the area of knee replacement; electronic devices, computer technology, software design, machines used in the television and film industry that enable the remote creation of content for television news and entertainment and theatrical films; the design of safety features involving products used by babies and toddlers; and the design of feminine napkins
- Trademark: Presided over jury trial in a false and misleading advertising and unfair competition action which resulted in a large award of compensatory and punitive damages and many other Lanham Act disputes
