“Roger is an excellent advocate and is extremely good at managing very complex and large patent litigations where multiple teams of attorneys may be involved. He also provides excellent advice from a business perspective."

Chambers USA 2023

“Provides great business advice and is an excellent litigator. He has a very calm demeanor, is always prepared, and comes up with very well though-out strategies.”

Chambers USA 2021

Roger Fulghum is an intellectual property trial lawyer. Roger has handled patent and trade secret disputes for more than thirty years in federal and state courts across the country. Roger is a natural communicator and can explain complex concepts to executives, inventors, judges, and jurors. He is a skilled attorney who can be lead counsel in a patent lawsuit in federal court, an inter partes review at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, or a trade secret lawsuit in state court. Chambers USA has consistently ranked Roger as a leading IP lawyer in Texas (2017-2025).

Roger's view is that successful legal work involves relationships built on trust, and this includes relationships with the client, opposing counsel, the judge, the experts, and the jurors. Put simply, he is good at solving intellectual property problems because he is good with people (including difficult people) and at having those people trust him.

Roger has handled hundreds of intellectual property disputes, and he excels when things get complicated. He enjoys handling cases that are purportedly irresolvable, cases with difficult personalities on both sides, cases with novel legal theories, cases with claims in multiple jurisdictions, cases with multiple patents, cases that involve both the district court and the PTAB, and cases with overlapping patent, contract, and trade secret claims. Roger also assists clients with pre-lawsuit assertions, negotiations, and licensing. Roger has developed strategies for preventing pre-lawsuit assertions of patent infringement from reaching district court and for creating a favorable record that minimizes (or eliminates) the risk of willful infringement in any subsequent lawsuit in district court.

Patent Disputes. Roger has handled patent disputes in federal courts throughout the country. He has litigated many technologies, including computer systems, consumer electronics, semiconductors, software, and fracturing equipment. Roger is a registered patent attorney with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and has been lead counsel on scores of inter partes review and reexamination proceedings. Over Roger's career, he has led teams at Baker Botts that have invalidated dozens upon dozens of asserted patents. Here are a few examples of Roger's previous work as lead counsel:

• After onsemi agreed to acquire Fairchild in 2015, Roger stepped in as lead counsel for onsemi in the long-running dispute involving Power Integrations. The Baker Botts team filed and defended against dozens of district court, Federal Circuit, and PTAB proceedings involving more than thirty patents on voltage regulators. After four years of coast-to-coast patent litigation, the case resolved favorably.

• Lead counsel for Dell in a case filed by Convolve on a patent concerning the “quick and quiet” operation of a hard drive. After years of hard-fought litigation in the Eastern District of Texas and the Patent Office, lead counsel for Dell at trial, where Dell received a highly favorable jury verdict.

• Lead technical counsel in a case filed by Halliburton as patent holder against Weatherford and involving a Halliburton patent on a non-metallic packer that revolutionized fracturing in horizontal wells. After Roger convinced the Court to reverse an unfavorable claim construction on a key “means plus function” claim term, Roger put on Halliburton’s technical case in the month-long trial in the Northern District of Texas, resulting in a jury verdict to Halliburton of more than $30 million.

• Lead counsel for AT&T in patent infringement litigation filed by Intellectual Ventures in Delaware and Texas.  Across the two lawsuits, IV asserted a total of 35 patents against AT&T’s products and services. After years of litigation and reexamination proceedings, the case resolved favorably under Roger's leadership.

• After U.S. Well Services sued Halliburton for infringement on seven patents related to electric fracturing, Halliburton hired Roger as lead technical counsel. Roger led a team that invalidated all seven asserted patents in proceedings before Hon. Alan Albright of the Western District of Texas and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Roger made the critical claim construction argument before Judge Albright that resulted in Judge Albright holding the term “high pressure” in U.S. Well Services’ patents indefinite. Halliburton asserted its patents against U.S. Well Services, and the case resolved favorably under Roger's leadership.

Trade Secret Disputes. Roger has handled trade secret disputes in federal and state courts. Roger is one of the few attorneys nationwide who has winning jury verdicts for both plaintiffs and defendants in trade secret misappropriation lawsuits. Here are a few examples:

• Represented plaintiff DSC in the landmark trade secret misappropriation case of DSC v. Next Level Communication, which resulted in a then-record trade secret verdict of $369 million for DSC. Roger was part of a team that took over the case six months before trial, developed the entirety of the trade secret case, and presented that case to the jury in a one-month trial in the Sherman Division of the Eastern District of Texas.

• Lead technical counsel for Reliant Energy in a trade secret misappropriation case in Texas state court. The purported trade secrets related to the development of a home services web site. After a three-week trial in which Roger put on Reliant Energy's technical case, the jury found no trade secret misappropriation on the part of Reliant Energy.

• Lead counsel for Sun Nuclear in defending a trade secret misappropriation case involving the development of a software program for calibrating dosimetry equipment for cancer treatment. After the Southern District of Texas issued a preliminary injunction, Sun Nuclear hired Roger, who defended Sun Nuclear in the lawsuit and assisted Sun Nuclear in developing a “clean whiteboard” strategy that resulted in the favorable resolution of the lawsuit.

• Lead counsel for Exterran in defending a trade secret misappropriation lawsuit brought by Honeywell UOP concerning the design of natural gas liquids processing plants. After several years of pre-lawsuit negotiations and several more years of active litigation with Honeywell UOP, Roger managed the favorable resolution of the lawsuit for Exterran.

Roger works in Houston and Austin and is the chair of the Intellectual Property practice for the Austin office of Baker Botts. The Austin Division of the Western District of Texas is a popular district for patent infringement lawsuits and includes one of the busiest patent judges in the country, Hon. Alan Albright. One of Roger's particular strengths is handling cases before Hon. Alan Albright, whom Roger has known for decades and worked with as co-counsel when Judge Albright was in private practice.

Roger is a fifth-generation Texan and a first-generation college graduate, earning a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering and a law degree from the University of Texas at Austin. Roger is married and has two grown children. In his free time, Roger enjoys traveling with his wife and attending live music events (with a particular fondness for music festivals, English Beat, and 70s/80s cover bands).