An intellectual property law firm founded in 1977, eight attorneys, a Federal Circuit precedential win on the zone-of-natural-expansion defense, and a representative-cases page that quietly reads like a federal trademark litigator’s wishlist.
San Antonio is not the first city most people think of when they think of federal intellectual property litigation in Texas. That distinction belongs to Houston, with the Southern District’s docket, or to the Eastern District around Tyler and Marshall, with the patent-dense reputation. But Gunn, Lee & Cave P.C. has been quietly building a Texas IP practice since 1977 — and in 2023, the firm secured a precedential opinion at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit defending a trademark cancellation petition against a major-creditor challenger.
Federal Circuit Precedent and Trademark Cancellation Work
In Dollar Financial Group, Inc. v. Brittex Financial, Inc., Case No. 2023-1375, Gunn, Lee & Cave represented Brittex Financial through a Trademark Trial and Appeal Board cancellation petition, a remand, and a precedential Federal Circuit affirmance that held the “zone of natural expansion” was not a valid defense against the cancellation. That is the kind of fact pattern that gets cited in TTAB cases for years afterward. It is also the kind of file that requires a firm comfortable with TTAB practice, the Federal Circuit, and the procedural cross-currents between them.
The firm’s representative cases page lists work for plaintiffs and defendants across patent infringement, trademark infringement, unfair competition, and trade-secret matters in the Western and Southern Districts of Texas — including the Casa Tradicion S.A. de C.V. v. Casa Azul Spirits, LLC tequila trade dress matter in the Southern District of Texas, where Gunn Lee & Cave attorneys appeared on the plaintiff side. The firm has also defended Lowe’s Companies in a patent infringement case in the Western District of Texas at Waco and represented Mimedx Group in patent infringement litigation involving biomedical tissue grafts.
A Federal Circuit precedential opinion on the zone-of-natural-expansion defense is the kind of file that ends up cited in TTAB cases for years.
The Partner Bench
John C. Cave, the firm’s Managing Partner, specializes in intellectual property litigation and mechanical patent preparation. Cave is admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, the Fifth Circuit, and the Northern, Southern, and Western Districts of Texas. He holds a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Texas A&M (1984) and a J.D. from Texas Tech University School of Law (1992).
Brandon T. Cook handles trademark and patent litigation across all four federal districts in Texas and is registered before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Cook holds a B.A. in Chemistry from Auburn University (2012) and a J.D. from St. Mary’s University School of Law (2015), and is registered before the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
Julie P. Bell appears with Cook on plaintiff-side IP matters in the Western and Southern Districts of Texas. Bell holds a B.A. in Biology and an M.A. in Health Administration from the University of Texas at San Antonio and the University of the Incarnate Word, and a J.D. from St. Mary’s University School of Law (2019).
Why a 1977-Founded Boutique Still Matters
Gunn, Lee & Cave has been practicing intellectual property law in San Antonio since 1977. Founding partner Ted D. Lee, board-certified by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization in civil trial law, is now of counsel after a career that spanned admissions in the U.S. Supreme Court, the Fifth, Seventh, Ninth, Eleventh, and Federal Circuit Courts of Appeals, and federal district courts in Texas, Indiana, California, and Arizona. The firm’s institutional memory in trademark, patent, copyright, and trade-secret law is unusually deep for an eight-attorney shop.
For trademark owners with disputes in the Western or Southern Districts of Texas — including Austin, San Antonio, Waco, Corpus Christi, Houston, and McAllen divisions — Gunn Lee & Cave is one of a small number of regional firms that combine TTAB prosecution depth, federal litigation experience, and Federal Circuit appellate work in a single roster.
Contact
Gunn, Lee & Cave P.C. — 8023 Vantage Drive, Suite 1500, San Antonio, Texas 78230 — (210) 245-8550.
