Disponible en anglais seulement

Steven is a partner in our Intellectual Property Litigation Group as well as the National co-Lead and Toronto Lead for the firm’s Inclusion Now program supporting mental health and accessibility initiatives. Steven is a frequent adjunct professor at Osgoode Hall Law School. With a focus on patent litigation, Steven represents clients in a broad range of sectors with a particular emphasis on the oil & gas, telecommunications and pharmaceutical sectors.

As a leader of McCarthy Tetrault’s national patent litigation group, in 2024 and 2025 he helped the group achieve Chambers Band 1 rankings both nationally and globally. In addition to these awards, the group is ranked as Tier 1 in patent disputes by Managing IP and gold ranked in IAM Patent 1000. Steven’s leadership and achievements have earned him personal rankings by Managing IP (patent star), IAM Patent 1000 (Gold) and Chambers (Band 4).

Steven appears frequently in the Federal Court and Federal Court of Appeal, primarily in patent disputes. In 2024, his reported courtroom experience includes:

Adeia Guides Inc. v. BCE Inc., 2024 FC 1471
Adeia Guides Inc. v. BCE Inc., 2024 FC 1470
Adeia Guides, Inc. v. BCE Inc., 2024 FC 942
Adeia Guides Inc. v. BCE Inc., 2024 FC 927
Adeia Guides, Inc. v. BCE Inc., 2024 FC 733
Eli Lilly Canada Inc. v. Apotex Inc., 2024 FCA 72

In 2023, Steven’s reported courtroom experience included:

As a leader of McCarthy Tétrault’s Oil and Gas Patent Litigation practice, Steven has led successful and significant oil and gas patent litigation mandates, including high profile mandates:

MEG Energy: This patent infringement action involved a patent that allegedly claimed an improved method of practicing SAGD to recover bitumen from oil sands. The Plaintiffs claimed over a billion dollars in the action and sought an injunction. Steven helped lead MEG Energy’s defence, which resulted in the Federal Court invalidating every asserted claim and issuing a declaration of non-infringement [2021 FC 10]. Steven co-led MEG Energy’s appeal which resulted in a complete dismissal and costs to MEG Energy in excess of half a million dollars [2022 FCA 118].
Aux Sable: This patent impeachment action related to an alleged improved method of transporting natural gas by pipeline. Steven helped lead Aux Sable’s claim and obtained an order invalidating key claims of JL Energy’s patent [2019 FC 581].
Enbridge: The Plaintiff brought an action for patent infringement and various other forms of relief relating to monitoring systems. Steven successfully led Enbridge’s defence, which resulted in the action being struck before Enbridge was required to plead in response [2019 FC 504].

In 2024, Steven was an invited speaker at the Canadian Energy Law Foundation presentation in Jasper where he spoke about historical trends in patent law affecting the energy sector. Along with his co-authors, Steven’s paper on this topic was published in 2025 in the Alberta Law Review.

Additionally, Steven has led or helped lead numerous actions and applications for innovative pharmaceutical companies. A selection of Steven’s mandates in this sector includes:

Allergan: Steven has led or co-led patent cases for various drugs, including LUMIGAN RC^®, COMBIGAN^®, LATISSE^®, ASACOL^®, SIMBRINZA^®, FIBRISTAL^®, and ACTONEL DR^® Recently, Steven led a patent infringement action for the drug RAPAFLO^® which upheld the validity of Allergan’s 002 Patent [2020 FC 1189].
Sumitomo Pharma Canada: Steven helped lead patent infringement actions against Pharmascience [T-315-20], JAMP [T-891-20] and Taro [T-671-20] relating to multiple patents to Sunovion’s drug LATUDA^®, which treats schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Steven has also helped lead Sumitomo’s defence for its drug APTIOM^®.
Eli Lilly: Steven helped lead Lilly’s appeals against many generic drug companies alleged to have improperly launched generic versions of Lilly’s blockbuster drug CIALIS^® [2024 FCA 72 and 2023 FCA 125].

Collectively, Steven’s pharmaceutical patent experience has covered a wide variety of diseases including glaucoma, hair loss, erectile dysfunction, ulcerative colitis, osteoporosis, psoriasis, cancer, BPH, schizophrenia, ulcers, allergies, high cholesterol, bacterial infections and seizures.

Steven has helped lead numerous actions in the telecommunications sector. He has successfully defended Bell Canada, TELUS, Ericsson and MediaKind in patent infringement actions relating to IPTV and “over the top” streaming [2022 FC 1388, 2024 FCA 126, 2024 FC 1471, 2024 FC 1470, 2024 FC 942, 2024 FC 927, 2024 FC 733].

For many years, Steven taught the patent section of Osgoode Hall’s survey course on intellectual property as an adjunct professor. Steven has also led the firm’s sponsorship of the Fox IP Moot and has been a guest Judge for many years.

The Abilities Action Group is part of the firm’s innovative Inclusion Now program and focuses on supporting mental health and accessibility. Steven has been a leader for these initiatives for year, including supporting mental health “peer panels”, suicide prevention, Bell Let’s Talk, and CAMH initiatives. In 2025, McCarthy Tetrault was awarded the Catalyst Award for its Inclusion Now program.

In his spare time, Steven has competed in numerous triathlons at the sprint, Olympic, IRONMAN 70.3, and IRONMAN distances. In the past few years, he joined a team of lawyers from the firm to participate in and raise money for the Princess Margaret Ride Conquer Cancer. Steven is working to complete the Abbott World Marathon Majors and has twice qualified for the Boston Marathon. Steven is also an avid guitar player. He regularly joins forces with fellow members of the firm (and alumni) as “Chambers Band One” which plays at firm charitable events and special occasions.

Steven received his Honours Co-operative Biochemistry (Biotechnology option) BSc from the University of Waterloo in 2001 and his JD from the University of Toronto Faculty of Law in 2005.