Duane Morris LLP

Matthew C. Gaudet is a trial lawyer who focuses on patent infringement cases. He is Vice Chair of the firm's Intellectual Property Practice Group, and he is the leader of the firm's IP Litigation Division that Law360 named Intellectual Property Group of the Year in 2024. He also was named Litigator of the Year in Georgia at the 2025 Managing IP Americas Awards.

In the past few years alone, Mr. Gaudet has defeated almost $4 billion of patent infringement claims by winning:

• A complete defense verdict in December 2023 for Cisco Systems, Inc. in the re-trial of the $2.7 billion claim brought by plaintiff Centripetal Networks against Cisco in the Eastern District of Virginia, resulting in a total victory for Cisco in what has been reported as the largest patent defense victory on record;
• A complete defense verdict in a jury trial for Roku Inc. in April 2024 in the Western District of Texas before Judge Alan Albright, defeating allegations that Roku’s streaming video players infringe two IOEngine LLC patents, for which IOEngine sought $318 million from the jury (IOEngine was backed by litigation financiers and had won two previous jury verdicts against other defendants who were represented by other law firms);
• A complete defense judgment in November 2025 for Cisco Systems, Inc. against a $600 million claim of patent infringement brought by Tel Aviv University against Cisco in the District of Delaware, defeating the University’s claims via a fully dispositive summary judgment ruling that has been described as a first-of-its-kind outcome;
• An affirmance by the Federal Circuit in October 2023 of a complete defense victory for SonicWall, Inc. against plaintiff Finjan, Inc., after Mr. Gaudet led the team that defeated all 10 asserted patents in the Northern District of California through a combination of summary judgment and Daubert rulings (Finjan had collected approximately $300 million in prior litigation against other defendants); and
• A complete defense victory through summary judgment in October 2023 for Fortinet, Inc. in the Northern District of California in a case brought by plaintiff 1440 Sports Management against Fortinet and the PGA TOUR, relating to Fortinet’s sponsorship of a PGA tournament event.

Mr. Gaudet is also serving as lead trial counsel for other major technology companies, including Verizon, Comcast, and Cox Communications. On the plaintiff’s side, he has collected over $100 million for patent holders.

Mr. Gaudet was previously recognized as one of the top five IP lawyers under 40 in the country by Law360 (in which he was described as a “deadly cross-examiner”). The honor followed a year when two different district courts―one in East Texas, one in Delaware―cited his cross-examinations of opposing experts in rulings that sustained winning jury verdicts, with one judge describing his cross-examination as "brilliant." Likewise, in the middle of trial for Verizon in the Northern District of California in 2022, the district court judge stated on the record that Mr. Gaudet’s cross-examination of plaintiff’s expert witness was “a great day in the trial.” For each of the last several years, Mr. Gaudet has been listed amongst the top 500 litigators in the country in Lawdragon 500 Leading Litigators in America. Every year since 2009, he has been included in Chambers USA: America's Leading Lawyers for Business in its listing of leading IP lawyers in Georgia. Mr. Gaudet is also listed in Best Lawyers in America and the "Top 100" of Georgia Super Lawyers.

Duane Morris LLP - Partner, 2005-present - Associate, 2002-2004 King & Spalding, Atlanta, Georgia - Associate, 1998-2002 United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit - Law Clerk, Honorable Susan H. Black, 1997-1998

Duke University School of Law, J.D., magna cum laude, 1997