Chris is an intellectual property and complex commercial trial lawyer in our San Francisco office with repeated successes for companies accused of infringing computer hardware and software patents. She has achieved cost-effective wins for clients in several industries including video game publishing, Fintech, ride sharing, consumer hardware and electronics, Wi-Fi semiconductors, mobile printers, healthcare software and hardware, wireless security cameras, Bluetooth-enabled tracking devices, cloud content management, and electronic loyalty programs.
Where cases cannot be resolved short of trial, Chris tries them. Over the past seven years, Chris has tried seven patent cases in the Eastern District of Texas, the Northern District of California, the Eastern District of Virginia, the International Trade Commission, and the Patent Trial and Appeal Board, two as first chair.
Among her trials of note is Realtek Semiconductor Corporation v. LSI Corporation, et al. (N.D. Cal. 2014), where Chris presented the sole company witness for Realtek at trial and the jury awarded $3.8 million based on his testimony. This case also resulted in the first U.S. jury verdict to set a reasonable and nondiscriminatory (“RAND”) royalty rate for declared standard essential patents (“SEPs”), believed then to be the lowest such rate for a WiFi declared SEP. Chris was also on the trial and appellate teams in Ericsson v. D-Link, et al. (E.D.Tex. 2013), which resulted in the seminal Federal Circuit opinion on RAND damages, Ericsson v. D-Link, 773 F.3d 1201 (Fed. Cir. 2014), and a complete victory for the defendants after appeal and a parallel inter partes review proceeding wiped out the remaining patents.
Chris also serves as Reed Smith’s expert in the Section 101 patent defense and has eliminated tens of millions of dollars in potential damages exposure faced by our clients by invalidating patents under Section 101, often at the pleading stage. Recent victories include MIAX v. Nasdaq, CBM2018-00030, 00032, where Chris argued as lead trial counsel for MIAX, invalidating two Nasdaq patents that were asserted against MIAX in parallel district court litigation. Chris also recently invalidated a patent under Section 101 and obtained affirmance of that result in University of Florida Research Foundation v. General Electric Co., 916 F.3d 1363 (Fed. Cir. 2019), an opinion that Law 360 dubbed one of the Federal Circuit’s “most significant patent rulings since the beginning of 2019.” Chris’ winning streak also includes invalidating a patent that had survived IPR on a motion to dismiss under Section 101 in Smart Authentication IP, LLC v. Electronic Arts Inc., 2019 WL 4305556 (N.D. Cal. Sept. 11, 2019), and invalidating two patents at the Rule 12 stage that had been asserted in over two dozen cases around the U.S. in Pebble Tide LLC v. Arlo Technologies, Inc., 2020 WL 509183 (D. Del. Jan. 31, 2020).
While her practice focuses on patent litigation, Chris also handles trade secret, unfair competition, trademark, copyright, and complex commercial disputes. Chris’ trial experience includes not only patent cases, but also breach of contract, fraud, and even criminal prosecution matters.
Chris is also deeply committed to the advancement of women and serves as the Chair of Reed Smith’s Women’s Initiative Network in San Francisco. She also founded her own company “Women’s Era” to continue to empower women in law and beyond.
