David E. Kleinfeld is Co-Chair of the Firmwide Complex Commercial Litigation Practice Group and Chair of the Litigation Department in the San Diego office. In addition, Mr. Kleinfeld serves on the firm's Compensation Committee and Finance Committee.

Experience

Mr. Kleinfeld’s practice focuses on intellectual property and business litigation.  His practice includes representation of corporations in litigation involving intellectual property, unfair competition and various business and commercial disputes.  Mr. Kleinfeld is listed as one of San Diego’s top business and intellectual property litigators by San Diego Magazine, one of California’s top rainmakers by California Law Business, is included in the 2008 edition of The Best Lawyers in America in the specialties of Commercial and Intellectual Property Litigation and as one of the top San Diego Intellectual Property lawyers by Superlawyers.com in 2008.

Mr. Kleinfeld's recent trial victories include the complete defense victory by QUALCOMM on all patent infringement claims after a three week jury trial involving position location technology, a plaintiffs' jury trial victory on behalf of QUALCOMM and against Trimble Navigation regarding defective GPS receivers and a defense victory on behalf of Ernst & Young regarding accounting malpractice and related claims. He recently defended QUALCOMM in litigation brought by more than 120 plaintiffs, in eight consolidated cases, seeking in excess of $150 million for claimed damages related to lost stock options. A complete defense victory was achieved in the trial court following the granting of ten successive summary adjudication motions. Mr. Kleinfeld recently defended QUALCOMM in class action litigation brought by former employees seeking damages of over $500 million dollars. He obtained dismissal of claims by 97 percent of the class and the action was subsequently settled with payment made entirely by third parties. Mr. Kleinfeld recently represented QUALCOMM in five consolidated cases including patent and license disputes with Motorola, in which claims for injunctive relief and damages were successfully resisted.

In addition, Mr. Kleinfeld recently represented Washington Mutual and Hewlett Packard in class action litigation. He also recently represented the City of San Diego in litigation relating to the multibillion dollar underfunding of the San Diego City Employee Retirement System. He has represented Jostens, Mail Boxes, Etc. and Kaplan in litigation including unfair competition and theft of trade secret claims where he obtained permanent injunctions and other relief. He has extensive experience in lender liability defense and was lead counsel for Mitsui Manufacturers Bank in obtaining the first reported appellate decision establishing that banks are not liable for tort damages for breach of standard commercial loan agreements.

He was part of the trial team that obtained a defense verdict and award of attorneys and accounting fees in excess of $1 million from the advisory jury in Grivas v. Security Pacific National Bank. He was also part of the trial team that obtained a defense verdict and award of $3.5 million to the bank from the jury in Bianchi v. Bank of America.

Mr. Kleinfeld has spoken frequently on a variety of litigation issues.

Publications

• New local rules pave way to speedier patent trials   San Diego Daily Transcript   06.12.2007