Patricia Young represents market-leading companies in intellectual property litigation, particularly high-stakes, complex, multi-patent, and multi-jurisdictional cases.

Ms. Young litigates patent and trade secrets cases for a broad spectrum of companies, both as defendants and plaintiffs. She regularly tries cases across the country, including in state and federal courts, and before the International Trade Commission (ITC).

She deftly synthesizes technical, economic, and legal perspectives to develop unique, winning litigation strategies. As an incisive and trusted advisor for patent and trade secret matters, she is also well-positioned to counsel clients on intellectual property issues in corporate matters.

Ms. Young has developed an impressive record of leading and managing complex, multi-product, multi-claim disputes. Her experience spans industries from semiconductors, memory, microprocessors, file system and storage software and hardware, networking, gaming, e-commerce, telecommunications, UV LEDs, biotech, protein engineering, sequencing technology, medical devices, and pharmaceuticals to consumer products.

She is a collaborator on the Patent Case Management Judicial Guide, the Federal Judicial Center’s definitive patent litigation how-to guide for federal judges, now in its third edition.

Her pro bono work addresses Social Security disability, domestic violence, veteran disability benefit, housing, and §1983 civil rights actions. She served on the firm's Pro Bono Committee and received the California State Bar Wiley M. Manuel Award for pro bono service in 2013.

Ms. Young’s representative client work includes:

  • Arista in ITC proceedings relating to patent infringement claims involving switching operating systems and protocols. Enforcement hearing resulted in a finding of non-infringement, thwarting Cisco’s efforts to shut down US sales of Arista’s switches and avoiding hundreds of millions in fines. Trial counsel in modification proceeding; prevailed when Commission cleared Arista’s redesigned products. Retained to replace prior counsel after adverse determinations in the underlying ITC matters. (Cisco v. Arista)
  • Arista in California Superior Court defending against software developer Optumsoft concerning trade secret misappropriation and breach of contract claims.
  • Codexis in a case regarding infringement of 10 Codexis patents, trade secret misappropriation, breach of contract, tortious interference, and unfair competition relating to engineered enzymes and biocatalysis technology. Obtained consent judgment of infringement on all patents. (Codexis v. EnzymeWorks (N.D. Cal.))
  • Capital One in a five-patent infringement case brought by Intellectual Ventures. Successfully defeated all five patents, including two on summary judgment of invalidity based on lack of patentable subject matter under 35 U.S.C. §101. (Intellectual Ventures v. Capital One (E.D. Va.))
  • Life Technologies in a two-patent infringement case brought by Enzo Life Sciences relating to nucleic acid probe and array technology. (Enzo Life Sciences v. Life Technologies (D.Del.))
  • Apple in numerous matters.
  • Oracle in a multi-patent lawsuit related to cloud computing technology and Oracle databases. Found key prior art and helped institute inter partes review of the patents-in-suit. Case settled on favorable terms. (Clouding IP v. Oracle Corporation (D. Del.)
  • Musicmatch, Inc. (Yahoo!) in patent infringement lawsuit involving software protection technology. All asserted claims found invalid for lack of written description. (Tse v. Apple, et al. (N.D. Cal. after transfer from D. Md.))

Bar Qualification

  • California
  • New York

Education

  • JD, Harvard Law School, 2005
    cum laude
  • SB Chemistry, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2002
  • SB Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2002