Pulling out your cellphone and snapping a picture of a check to make a bank deposit verges on the commonplace at this point. But that wasn’t the case back in 2006 when Chuck Oakes and his team at United Services Automobile Association were developing the underlying technology for use primarily by the military service members and their families who make up USAA’s membership.

That was the story that our Litigators of the Week, Jason Sheasby and Lisa Glasser of Irell & Manella, told a Marshall, Texas, jury that yielded USAA a $218.45 million damages verdict in patent litigation against PNC Bank.  USAA’s team also included Irell partners Rebecca Carson, Andrew Strabone and Tony Rowles; counsel Jonathan Lindsay; and associates Stephen Payne, Kelsey Tuohy and Nicole Miller. Rowles and of counsel Michael Fleming handled much of the work defending the same patents from a challenge by PNC Bank at the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board.