James Yanney
James M. Yanney is an associate at Caldwell Cassady & Curry who focuses on patent litigation and other technologically complex disputes in federal district courts and before the U.S. International Trade Commission and the Patent Trial and Appeal Board. He combines first-chair trial experience with a strong technical background, including prosecuting patents for some of the world’s leading companies and inventors.
James develops and executes focused litigation strategies by drawing on his engineering degree and years of trial and patent prosecution experience. As an assistant district attorney, he first chaired multiple felony jury trials before moving to a national law firm, where he prosecuted patent applications for multinational technology companies. He provides an in-depth understanding of how patent rights are developed, examined, and ultimately asserted or challenged.
James earned his electrical engineering degree, summa cum laude, from the University of Texas at San Antonio, where he focused on electronics, software, computer architecture, and artificial intelligence.
Court Admissions
State Bar of Texas
U.S. Patent and Trademark Office
U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board
U.S. International Trade Commission
The University of Texas School of Law
J.D., 2015
University of Texas at San Antonio; summa cum laude
B.S.E.E., 2025
Clemson University
B.A., History, 2011
Brad Caldwell is a trial lawyer who focuses on patent infringement and complex commercial litigation for both plaintiffs and defendants. His courtroom success before judges, juries, and arbitration panels includes cases involving digital media, telecommunications and computer networking, data security, computer imaging, medical devices, enterprise software, banking technology, and oilfield services.
He has been named “Litigator of the Week” by The American Lawyer magazine two different times based on record-setting patent infringement verdicts against Apple Inc. Those jury awards of $625.6 million and $302 million were ranked as the 6th and 9th largest verdicts in the nation during 2016. The year prior, Caldwell helped Smartflash LLC win a $532.9 million verdict against Apple that was the year’s top Texas verdict and the largest intellectual property verdict in the U.S., ranking third nationwide overall.
Before starting his legal career, Caldwell worked for a year as an electrical engineer at the Central Intelligence Agency in Langley, Virginia, where he obtained a top-secret security clearance and was awarded multiple merit-based citations.
In addition to earning a spot in The Best Lawyers in America since 2016, Mr. Caldwell has been named one of the Lawdragon 500 Leading Lawyers in America since 2014. He also has earned selection to the annual Texas Super Lawyers list since 2015, including being named in 2019 as one of the Top 100 attorneys in Dallas/Fort Worth, and the affiliated Texas Rising Stars list (2006-2009, 2011-2015) based on his work in patent cases. His role in helping a client win a $250 million patent verdict was featured in a 2009 profile article published by Super Lawyers magazine. In 2012, Mr. Caldwell was named a leading U.S. patent litigator by the publishers of The Legal 500, and he previously was honored by D Magazine in its annual listing of the Best Lawyers in Dallas Under 40.
Mr. Caldwell is licensed to practice before all Texas and New York state courts, the U.S. District Courts for the Northern, Southern, Eastern and Western Districts of Texas, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, and the U.S. Supreme Court.
Prior to the formation of Caldwell Cassady & Curry, Mr. Caldwell was a principal at McKool Smith. At the University of Texas School of Law, he received the Dean’s Achievement Award in Patent Litigation. Before attending law school, Mr. Caldwell earned a degree in electrical engineering from Texas A&M University. He now serves as a member of the electrical engineering department’s External Advisory & Development Council. During an externship from Texas A&M, Mr. Caldwell worked for a year as an electrical engineer at the Central Intelligence Agency in Langley, Virginia, where he obtained a top-secret security clearance and was awarded multiple merit-based citations.
Firm Honors
- Texas Verdicts Hall of Fame (2019) – Texas Lawyer newspaper
- U.S. Firm to Watch (2018) – Managing Intellectual Property magazine
- Texas Intellectual Property Litigation Department of the Year (2017) – Texas Lawyer
- #1 U.S. Plaintiffs’ Patent Firm – IAM Patent 1000 – The World’s Leading Patent Professionals
- Top 100 U.S. Verdicts of 2016 (3 verdicts) – The National Law Journal/VerdictSearch
- #1 Texas Intellectual Property Verdict (2016) – The National Law Journal/VerdictSearch
- Top 50 Recoveries (2015-2016) – The National Law Journal
- Best Law Firms (2017) – The Best Lawyers in America/U.S. News & World Report
- Top Patent Damage Awards Won Since 2000 (2015) – Law360
- Top 100 U.S. Verdicts of 2015 – The National Law Journal/VerdictSearch
- #1 Texas Intellectual Property Verdict (2015) – The National Law Journal/VerdictSearch
James Yanney
Associate