Chris Ottenweller, a partner in the Silicon Valley office, is a senior partner in the Intellectual Property Group. His practice focuses on patent, copyright, trade secrets and Internet litigation. His career has concentrated on representing leading technology companies in trials and complex litigation, often involving multimillion dollar claims and cutting-edge legal issues. He has tried many cases to judgment, in all types of forums, including jury trials, bench trials, arbitrations and adverse regulatory proceedings.
His clients include leading technology and Fortune 500 companies, such as Intel, EMC, Acer, and eBay. His engagements have involved matters in electronics, computers, software, telecommunications, e-commerce and bio-tech.
Chambers USA has recognized Mr. Ottenweller as a leading IP Litigator in the United States. The Daily Journal has repeatedly recognized Mr. Ottenweller as one of California's best Intellectual Property Litigators in its annual survey of the best attorneys in the state, most recently in 2009.
The following is a list of some of his current and past representative cases.
- Hewlett-Packard Co. v. EMC Corp. (N.D. Cal.) Mr. Ottenweller represented EMC against Hewlett-Packard in patent litigation relating to a variety of technologies, including data storage, computers, servers and printers. After being sued for alleged infringement of HP patents, EMC asserted its own patent infringement claims against HP. After Markman and summary judgment proceedings, the case settled with HP agreeing to pay EMC US$400 million, one of the largest patent settlements on record. EMC paid nothing.
- Hewlett-Packard Co. v. Acer Computer (ITC; EDTX) Mr. Ottenweller represented Acer Computer in an ITC Section 337 action and two Federal Court actions brought by Hewlett-Packard alleging infringement of multiple patents. HP sought exclusion orders and other relief attempting to bar Acer's sales of notebook and desktop computers and monitors in the United States. The ITC action was tried in February 2008. After trial, the ITC staff supported Acer's position that there was no infringement. One week before the ITC judge was scheduled to issue his initial determination, the parties entered into a settlement agreement, including a multiyear patent cross-license agreement covering Acer's core products throughout the world.
- Intel Patent Litigation. Mr. Ottenweller has represented Intel in a number of its patent infringement lawsuits. He was lead counsel for Intel, Numonyx, Sony Ericsson and Apple in Fast Memory Erase v. Intel, et al., (N.D. Tex.). Fast Memory, an Acacia entity, accused chip suppliers and cell phone manufacturers of infringing patents related to flash memory technology. Mr. Ottenweller obtained a complete judgment for Intel, Numonyx, Sony Ericsson and Apple following claim construction. Mr. Ottenweller was lead counsel for Intel in Jackson v. Intel, a case originally filed in Marshall, Texas but transferred on Intel's motion to the Northern District of Illinois. Intel obtained judgment in its favor on an early summary judgment motion, filed before any formal discovery. Mr. Ottenweller was lead counsel for Intel in BIAX Corp. v. Intel, in which the plaintiff accused Intel's Pentium and Itanium microprocessors of infringing four patents. The case settled on the first day of trial in Marshall, Texas after Intel won key summary judgment and pre-trial motions.
- Silvaco v. Intel (Santa Clara County Superior Court) Mr. Ottenweller represented Intel in a trade secrets misappropriation lawsuit filed by a supplier of CAD software. Silvaco alleged that Intel and other semiconductor companies were liable for trade secrets misappropriation on account of their use of commercial software obtained from a vendor Silvaco accused of misappropriating source code. Intel obtained summary judgment dismissing the action in its entirety on the ground that it did not acquire or use the alleged trade secrets, and Silvaco's non-trade secrets claims were preempted under the California Uniform Trade Secret Act. The case is currently on appeal.
- Cisco Systems, Inc. v. Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. (E.D. Texas) Mr. Ottenweller represented Cisco in a copyright, trade secrets and patent infringement action a against Chinese competitor involving claims of source code theft. The case resulted in an injunction in favor of Cisco, barring Huawei from distributing the tainted router product anywhere in the world.
- Storage Technology Inc. v. EMC Corp. (N.D. Cal.) Mr. Ottenweller represented EMC in a patent and licensing lawsuit with Storage Technology, which accused EMC of patent infringement. The case was tried on EMC's defense that it had a license. EMC prevailed on its defense, obtained dismissal of the action, which was affirmed by the Federal Circuit.
- AT&T Corp. v. eBay Inc. and PayPal, Inc. (D. Delaware) Mr. Ottenweller represented eBay and PayPal in a patent infringement action filed by AT&T involving online payment systems and communication systems. AT&T alleged that certain methods and techniques of PayPal's popular online payment system infringed its patent rights. The case settled prior to trial.
From 1997 through 2000, Mr. Ottenweller served as co-partner-in-charge of the Silicon Valley office.
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