Jan Pot

Partner and Head of Litigation

Jan is a partner and Head of Litigation at Brinkhof. He is a litigator in every sense of the word, specialising in complex litigation involving intellectual property and technology. Jan is admitted to the bar of the Supreme Court of the Netherlands, and leads all proceedings in which Brinkhof acts before the Supreme Court. He is one of a very small number of Supreme Court litigators specialising in intellectual property and technology.

Patent litigation

Jan has more than a decade of experience in conducting complex national and international patent litigation before the Dutch courts and at the European Patent Office. Jan focuses primarily on pharmaceutical and mechanical patents. Jan is registered as a representative before the Unified Patent Court (UPC).

Notable representations include:

representation of Philips Domestic Appliances in patent infringement proceedings against AB InBev. He obtained an injunction for Philips in summary proceedings concerning an infringement of a crucial patent relating to Philips’ Beertender beer dispenser for home use;
representation of Belmoca in an infringement case brought by KDE concerning aluminium Nespresso-compatible coffee capsules. Both in preliminary relief proceedings and proceedings on the merits, all infringement allegations of KDE were denied;
over the last years, Jan has represented Synthon in a number of pharmaceutical infringement and nullity cases, including against Teva and Novartis;

Commercial litigation and class actions

Jan coordinates Brinkhof’s civil litigation practice and represents clients in complex, high-stakes civil litigation involving technology. The clients he assists in these proceedings are often leading tech companies. These cases often require a multi-disciplinary approach, and Jan then works in close coordination with Brinkhof’s subject matter experts. Jan handles both class actions under the Dutch WAMCA regime as well as regular civil proceedings including follow on competition law claims. In addition, as Supreme Court litigator, Jan spearheads all cases in which Brinkhof represents clients before the Supreme Court of the Netherlands.

Notable representations include:

representation of a leading tech company in multiple civil cases involving competition law issues, including WAMCA class action proceedings and several regular follow-on proceedings (with Pepijn van Ginneken);
represented Infineon in Supreme Court proceedings against NXP, in which the Supreme Court overturned a judgment of the Court of Appeal which had held that Infineon infringed NXP’s trademark rights (with Gregor Vos);
represents cloud hosting provider Digital Ocean in a dispute on liability for customer actions (with Dorien Verhulst). The court rejected all of the counterparty’s claims.

Experience & ancillary activities

Jan studied Law in Amsterdam (UvA) and New York (Columbia Law School). He was admitted to the bar in 2013, and to the Supreme Court bar in 2019. Before becoming a lawyer, he was an external court clerk at the Amsterdam District Court for several years.