Overview

Clients look to Nitika Gupta Fiorella for guidance at all stages of litigation, from the earliest days of a dispute through trial and appeal. As co-leader of Fish & Richardson’s Appellate Practice Group, she directs the firm’s award-winning appellate practice, working to ensure that the firm’s clients are best prepared to make their case at the Federal Circuit.  

Nitika frequently represents clients in a variety of forums, including, District Courts across the country, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) and the Federal Circuit. Her experience spans a wide range of technologies, including medical devices, pharmaceuticals, oil and gas technology, software, automotive design and innovation, polymer chemistry, and more. 

Nitika maintains a robust appellate practice in which she has led dozens of appeals, arguing, and winning, many of them before the Federal Circuit. In 2020, she argued the first-ever Federal Circuit telephonic appellate argument after the Covid-19 pandemic forced court appearances online, ultimately securing a summary affirmance for her client. More recently, she led the appeal for a major chemical company in which she secured an outright reversal of a PTAB decision at the Federal Circuit – a result that occurs in less than five percent of PTAB appeals.  

As a former Federal Circuit clerk, she has a keen understanding of the complexities involved with intellectual property appeals and how best to tackle them. She applies these insights to give her clients the best odds of success, which means thinking about and preparing for appellate issues well before an appeal is ever docketed. Nitika is particularly noted for her ability to distill a vast amount of information and evidence into concise, relevant, and compelling appellate briefs and arguments.  

Nitika previously served as law clerk for the Honorable Kent A. Jordan of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit (2014-2015) and for the Honorable Chief Judge Sharon Prost of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (2015-2016). Prior to attending law school at New York University, Nitika attended the University of Delaware as a Eugene DuPont Scholar, where she obtained dual degrees in chemical engineering and political science. She is also fluent in Hindi. 

Dedicated to supporting the professional growth of early career attorneys, Nitika serves as a mentor in Fish’s EMPOWER women’s initiative. She is also the co-chair of the Federal Trial Practice Seminar, a multi-week instructional trial practice program sponsored by the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware and the District of Delaware Chapter of the Federal Bar Association. Nitika has also served as president of the South Asian Bar Association of Delaware since 2022.  

In her leisure time, Nitika can be found cheering on all the Philadelphia sports teams or concocting interesting cocktails as an amateur mixologist.

Experience

  • Confidential Client: The Fish team represented a major chemical company as patent owner in a litigation involving two patents related to a copolymer used to coat plenum wire cables. Fish filed the litigation against the client’s main competitor in 2018. The litigation was stayed pending inter partes review, where the PTAB first found the claims unpatentable. Nitika led the effort on appeal, where she was able to secure a rare reversal of the PTAB’s decision at the Federal Circuit and revive the patents. Back in District Court, the Fish team carried the client through favorable Markman rulings, including on the key term upon which the plaintiff’s noninfringement argument relied. The parties litigated up to the eve of trial before entering into a favorable settlement agreement for Fish’s client.
  • Confidential Client: The Fish team represented an oil and gas company in a patent litigation where it significantly reduced their client’s damages exposure by eliminating two key patents through IPRs and persuading the court to strike the patentee’s damages expert from the case. After Nitika successfully defended the PTAB wins at the Federal Circuit, the case went to trial in November 2021. There, Fish was able to fend off a damages ask of hundreds of millions of dollars, allowing the patentee less than 5% of its total ask. The case is currently on appeal at the Federal Circuit.  
  • Confidential Client: The Fish team won two high-profile, precedential decisions at the Federal Circuit for a leading pharmaceutical manufacturer. In both wins, Fish convinced the court to reinstate the $235 million jury verdict Fish obtained for the client in June 2017 for induced infringement of the client’s heart disease drug. 
  • Confidential Client: The Fish team represented a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company before the PTAB and Federal Circuit, where it was able to secure the client’s status as the first inventor of a breakthrough oral drug for patients suffering from low testosterone. The client’s competitor claimed that it was the first to invent such a drug, and pointed to its earlier patent application as support. Fish filed an interference to settle this priority dispute, and the PTAB agreed with Fish that its client invented the testosterone drug before the competitor, rendering the competitor’s patents invalid. On appeal, Nitika argued in the first-ever COVID-forced telephonic oral argument held by the Federal Circuit, where she convinced the Court to summarily affirm the PTAB’s finding.  
  • Confidential Client: The Fish team defended a major chemical company against a patent litigation suit related to a process for making a specific kind of refrigerant. After securing key wins during claim construction, and on the eve of summary judgment briefing, the parties entered into a favorable settlement agreement for Fish’s client.  
  • Parallel Networks Licensing LLC v. Microsoft Corp. (D. Del.): The Fish team defended Microsoft in a suit brought by Parallel Networks, alleging patent infringement of two patents by Microsoft’s Windows Server and Windows SharePoint products, Azure Web Apps, and the Microsoft.com, Bing, and MSN websites. After a four-day trial, the jury returned a verdict for Microsoft in under one hour, finding non-infringement on every claim. Fish then successfully defended their win on appeal at the Federal Circuit.  

    • Testimonials 

  • “[Nitika’s] technical ability, her writing, and her critical thinking is just superb. She has such a wonderful client relationship. She is a superstar, and I just want to make that known.” — Client Testimonial 
  • “Nitika Fiorella's strengths are that she is very good at briefing and arguing legal points and motions.” — Client Testimonial  

    • Professional associations

  • South Asian Bar Association of Delaware, President (2022-Present), Board Member (2017-2022)
  • Innocence Delaware, Board Member
  • Third Circuit Lawyers Advisory Committee, Chair (2022-2023), Vice Chair (2021-2022)

    • Pro bono activities

    As a founding board member of Innocence Delaware, Nitika devotes considerable time to furthering its mission of exonerating those who have been wrongfully convicted in the state. She is currently seeking relief for a pro bono client who has been imprisoned for over 20 years.  

    Nitika's pro bono practice also includes working alongside Immigration Equality to promote justice and equality for LGBTQ and HIV-positive immigrants. Since 2015, she has represented a South American client who is seeking asylum in the U.S. after facing persecution in his home country for his sexual orientation.