Steven J. Barber

Partner

• sbarber@steptoe.com
• vCard
• Washington Office

Steve Barber is a litigation partner in the firm's Washington, DC office. He focuses on high stakes intellectual property, mass tort and insurance litigation. He has substantial first chair trial experience and has tried cutting edge patent and trademark infringement cases (including Section 337 cases at the ITC), complex toxic tort and mass tort cases, a major insurance coverage case, and many other types of cases. He also serves as national trial and coordinating counsel for a large American corporation contesting thousands of mass tort cases pending in multiple jurisdictions.

Intellectual Property
Mr. Barber's intellectual property practice focuses on patent, trademark, copyright, and unfair competition litigation. He has tried IP cases in federal district court and at the United States International Trade Commission (Section 337). He has handled multi-district patent infringement litigation, as well as patent infringement cases in "rocket dockets" such as the US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas and the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. Mr. Barber has also litigated patent-based and trademark-based Section 337 cases at the ITC. His IP clients range from Internet start-up companies to established manufacturers in heavy industries.

Mass Tort, Insurance and Reinsurance
Mr. Barber's mass tort practice centers on his role as national trial and coordinating counsel for a major American corporation litigating concealment, conspiracy and other tort claims arising out of the corporation's historic investigative efforts, research, and publications on various industrial chemicals. Mr. Barber has taken cases to trial, and has supervised thousands of pleadings, motions, discovery activities, and pretrial filings. Through aggressive dispositive motions practice and trial, Mr. Barber and the Steptoe team have prevailed in hundreds of cases in some of the most challenging jurisdictions in the United States.

Mr. Barber has represented several of the world's largest insurance and reinsurance companies in coverage litigation. Early in his career he focused on environmental coverage litigation, and obtained a defense verdict in a major environmental coverage case involving hundreds of millions of dollars of claimed damages. In recent years, Mr. Barber has expanded his insurance practice to include other types of first and third party liability coverage litigation, as well as reinsurance litigation.

Select News & Events

• Unfair Acts and Unfair Competition: Enforcing Intellectual Property Rights at the Border through Section 337, October 30, 2008, (A Steptoe-Sponsored Event)
• A Helping Hand Prevails in US District Court

Selected Publications

• Effects of the America Invents Act on International Trade Commission Section 337 Proceedings
  December 13, 2011
• Motions to Compel Plant Inspections Are Not Automatically Granted in ITC Section 337 Proceedings
  October 24, 2011
• Balancing Funding by Role Reduction for OUII in ITC 337 Cases
  August 4, 2011
• 通过减少不公平进口调查办公室在美国国际贸易委员会337调查中的角色 (Simplified Chinese)
  August 4, 2011
• Section 337 Update: Prosecution Bar Denied for Failure to File Timely Motion
  February 28, 2011
• Claim Construction Rulings Are Not Immediately Reviewable in ITC Section 337 Proceedings
  November 10, 2010
• The International Trade Commission Increases Its Focus on the Public Interest in Section 337 Cases
  September 29, 2010
• 国内产业要求中的经济标准和技术标准的关系
  September 2, 2010

More Publications »

Professional Affiliations

• American Bar Association