The Daily Journal has named Crowell & Moring’s Molly A. Jones as a Top Intellectual Property Lawyer in California in 2024. The annual list recognizes California lawyers who have made significant contributions to intellectual property law over the past year.
Jones, a technology litigator with significant experience handling complex IP litigation, was selected in part because of her integral work on a Crowell team that secured a significant defense verdict for ScentAir Technologies in a patent infringement lawsuit brought by competitor Prolitec.
In addition to significant work on the technical case, Molly dismantled Prolitec’s damages case through successful Daubert challenges to the combined opinions of Prolitec’s technical and damages experts and through surgical cross-examination of Prolitec’s damages expert at trial on his remaining opinions. Through the team’s efforts, ScentAir obtained key case-narrowing wins against Prolitec’s assertions of infringement.
Jones was also a key member of the Crowell team that represented Molson Coors Brewing Co. in a high-profile trademark infringement case defending it subsidiary, MillerCoors, and the maker of Keystone Light. Stone Brewing sued Molson Coors for trademark infringement, trademark dilution, and unfair competition, alleging that the Keystone brand refresh created a likelihood of consumer confusion. Stone sought actual damages and disgorgement of Molson Coors’ profits from the sale of Keystone since 2017, totaling hundreds of millions of dollars. MillerCoors engaged the Crowell team as trial counsel in August 2019, post-discovery. Following a three-week jury trial that concluded in April 2022, the jury ruled in favor of Stone Brewing, but awarded a mere fraction of the damages sought.
“While the hometown jury may have partially credited Stone Brewing’s infringement theories, it agreed with Molson Coors that much of Stone Brewing’s decline came from its own making, and therefore, it awarded Stone Brewing a mere fraction of the recovery it sought,” Jones told the Daily Journal in an interview published on May 22.
“I am honored to have the chance to work on such challenging cases and have that work recognized by the Daily Journal,” Jones said.
