Kevin Johnson, who has an electrical engineering degree from Cornell, serves as lead counsel for companies such as Samsung, Sony, MediaTek, Natera, and Salesforce, to name a few. He has tried many cases to verdict for these and other clients throughout his career. His practice focuses on litigating patent infringement, trade secret, unfair competition, trademark, copyright, and licensing actions in Federal and State courts, as well as the International Trade Commission. His experience ranges from representing Fortune 50 companies to smaller, rapidly growing technology companies in disputes related to smartphones, microprocessors, wireless communications, semiconductor processing equipment, liquid crystal devices, consumer electronics, medical devices, biotech and life science products, software and graphics, telecommunications, and optical devices.
- C3.AI
- MediaTek
- DexCom
- Foresite Capital
- Kleiner Perkins
- Vizgen
- Sony
- Salesforce
- Samsung
- Represented California Institute of Technology in a patent infringement lawsuit that it filed against Apple and Broadcom in the Central District of California that resulted in a $1.1 billion jury verdict. The patented technology involved 802.11 IEEE wireless technology.
- Represented C3.aI, and its CEO Thomas Siebel obtained a complete defense verdict following a seven-day bench trial in 2019. Following trial, the Court awarded a complete defense victory which included an award of attorneys’ fees and costs for Defendants. The award was upheld by the Third Circuit Court of Appeals.
- Represented Twist Bioscience and its CEO against Agilent in a trade secret misappropriation case that Twist’s CEO characterized as “an all-out legal assault on Twist.” Mr. Johnson led the team that repeatedly discredited the merits of the alleged claims, ultimately resulting in a settlement of all claims and counterclaims in 2020, pursuant to which Twist provided no admission of liability or wrongdoing and achieved a full release of the claims against the defendants.
- Represented Salesforce in a two-patent action filed by Michael Philip Kaufman. After an expedited discovery and trial schedule was set, Salesforce was able to successfully transfer the case to the Northern District of California. Shortly thereafter, a favorable settlement was reached covering both the district court and related IPR proceedings.
- Representing Salesforce in ten patent infringement actions filed by WSOU Investments, LLC in the Western District of Texas. The plaintiff voluntarily dismissed two of the cases in view of a favorable claim construction ruling from the Court and discovery demonstrating non-infringement.
- Represented Salesforce in a patent action filed by AIT, LLC. Mr. Johnson’s team won on summary judgment in the District Court, achieving a ruling of both invalidity of every patent claim asserted by AIT, and a finding of non-infringement.
- Representing Natera in a Lanham act action against competitor Guardant Health relating to statements the parties have made about the performance of their competing minimal residual disease (MRD) tests.
- Representing DexCom in a global patent dispute against Abbott Diabetes Care, in which DexCom is asserting four patents against Abbott in Delaware. The patents-at-issue relate to continuous glucose monitoring technology.
- Representing Natera in patent litigation against competitor CareDx, in which CareDx is asserting three patents against Natera and Natera is asserting two patents against CareDx.
- Representing Nantworks, who has sued Bank of America for copyright infringement (as well as patent infringement, trade secret misappropriation, and breach of contract) regarding NantWorks’ mobile check deposit technology. Bank of America’s motion to dismiss is currently pending before the Court.
- Represented Bio-Rad Laboratories and Lawrence Livermore National Security, LLC in a multifront battle against 10X Genomics. Mr. Johnson won summary judgement under the doctrine of assignor estoppel and prevented 10X from raising an invalidity defense. Bio-Rad, with Mr. Johnson as co-lead counsel, won a determination of infringement; the ALJ recommended an exclusion order to bar 10X’s products from being imported. The Patent Trial and Appeal Board agreed and denied institution of all fourteen petitions.
- Represented Sony in a multifront battle against Fujifilm arising from Fujifilm’s anticompetitive conduct seeking to exclude Sony from the Linear Tape-Open magnetic tape market. Because this hearing was in parallel with the 1068 ITC Investigation for Bio-Rad, Mr. Johnson presented the openings in both Investigation hearings in back-to-back days and moved between the courtrooms as he cross-examined witnesses in both investigations. In March 2019, the full Commission of the ITC affirmed Sony’s victory in all respects and issued exclusion orders barring Fujifilm’s magnetic tape products from being imported into the US. The matter settled favorably prior to a decision by CBP.
- Represented BlackBerry in a patent and trade dress infringement action brought by BlackBerry against Typo Products LLC (co-founded by Ryan Seacrest) and Show Media LLC. Mr. Johnson obtained a preliminary injunction for Blackberry to halt the sale of Defendants’ iPhone case. The Defendants, however, failed to comply with the injunction, and at BlackBerry’s request, the Court ordered Typo to pay BlackBerry over $860,000 in sanctions and awarded Blackberry its attorneys’ fees and costs relating to the contempt motion. The case settled with Typo agreeing to permanently discontinue the sale of keyboards for smartphones and mobile devices with screens that are less than 7.9 inches.
- Represented Marvell Semiconductor in a patent suit brought by France Telecom. Successfully moved to transfer the case to the Northern District of California. Prevailed on claim construction and is winning partial summary judgment that eliminated 80% of sales from the damages calculation. After a trial in September 2014, successfully obtained a favorable damages verdict more than five times less than what plaintiff sought and successfully obtained a defense judgment after post-trial motions. Plaintiff dropped its appeal before briefing, leaving intact Marvell’s defense judgment.
- Served as co-lead counsel representing Samsung in the company’s smartphone litigations with Apple, including patent, design patent, and trade dress disputes with Apple in the Northern District of California, Federal Circuit, the United States Supreme Court, and the International Trade Commission as well as Netherlands, Germany, UK, Korea, and Japan.
- Hofstra University School of Law
(J.D., 1992)- Law Review:
- Associate Editor
- Associate Editor
- Law Review:
- Cornell University
(B.S., Electrical Engineering, 1988)
- The State Bar of California
- The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office
- French
- Spanish
- Italian
- Fish & Neave, Palo Alto:
- Partner
- Ranked by Benchmark Litigation - Intellectual Property, Product Liability and Recall, Energy, Litigation Star, 2024
- Listed as a Best Lawyers in America for Intellectual Property Litigation, 2013-2021, 2024-2025
- Ranked in California Intellectual Property Patent Litigation, Chambers USA, 2013-2022
- Listed as "Leading Intellectual Property Lawyers in California," Daily Journal, 2018
- Selected as a SuperLawyer, 2012-2018
- Named a "Top Intellectual Property Attorney," Daily Journal, 2016
- Named “Technology MVP,” Law360, 2016, 2017
- Ranked in Top IP Lawyers, Daily Journal, 2015,2016
- Ranked in California Intellectual Property Patent Litigation, Chambers USA, 2013
- "Keeping the Bar High – The Doctrine of Equivalents in the Aftermath of the Supreme Court’s Festo Decision,"
- Stanford Technology Law Review (2003)
- "Festo and Claim Construction,"
- The American Conference Institute’s Seventh National Advanced Forum on Litigating Patent Disputes, San Francisco, California (2002)
- "Assessing Your Patent Risk," The Venture Capital Review, Issue 9 (Fall 2001)
- Member, Federal Circuit Bar Association
- Member, American Bar Association
- Member, New York Intellectual Property Law Association
- Member, Bar Association of San Francisco