Chris Ponder

Chris Ponder is a Special Counsel in the Intellectual Property Practice Group in the firm’s Silicon Valley office. Mr. Ponder’s practice focuses on complex patent and business litigation that often involves competitors. His litigation experience includes conducting and managing fact and expert discovery, and developing claims and defenses.

Mr. Ponder has extensive experience in motion advocacy, and routinely argues motions in federal court. He has taken depositions of high-level corporate executives (including a chief operating officer, a chief technology officer, and a general counsel), as well as expert witnesses. He has worked on several inter partes review proceedings related to active district court litigation.

Mr. Ponder has taken part in jury trials involving patent infringement and other commercial claims. Intellectual property counseling matters have included assisting clients with negotiating and evaluating patent licenses, and evaluating software license agreements, and responding to trademark and copyright infringement issues.

Education:

• J.D., University of Houston , 2008, magna cum laude Articles Editor, Houston Law Review, Order of the Coif
• B.S., Computer Science, University of Houston, 2004, cum laude,
• Member of the Honors College

Admissions:

• California
• Texas
• United States Patent and Trademark Office
• United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit
• United States District Court for the Northern District of California
• United States District Courts for the Southern and Eastern Districts of Texas

Experience:

• Represented leading game developer in an inter partes review proceeding where the PTAB found all challenged claims unpatentable following an unsuccessful IPR challenge by a different game developer
• Represented leading wearable device company in an inter partes review proceeding where the Patent Owner (a Wi-LAN subsidiary) disclaimed the challenged claims after institution
• Ultratec, Inc. v. Sorenson Communications, Inc. (W.D. Wis.) – Represented CaptionCall LLC in competitor litigation involving captioned telephone technology; developed petitioner’s response to plaintiff’s secondary considerations evidence in eight co-pending inter partes reviews
• MedioStream Inc. v. Microsoft Corp. (E.D. Tex.) – Defended Dell Inc. against claims that its computer systems allegedly infringe a patent that covers transcoding video into a format for optical discs
• Assisted client with contracting for independent software support services that comply with their enterprise software licenses
• Provided an opinion to a client analyzing their ownership rights in software works they derived from licensed software

Memberships:

• American Bar Association – Section of Intellectual Property Law