2023 speakers

Robert (“Rob”) Kramer is nationally recognized as one of the most experienced, successful, results-oriented, and winning patent litigators in the country. He has been named by IP Law360 a “Legal Lion” for his lead counsel patent infringement jury trial victories. Recently, Mr. Kramer was lead counsel for plaintiff winning a $172.6 million jury verdict of willful infringement against Micro Focus Corp., a Hewlett-Packard spin-off company that acquired HP’s software business for $8 billion. This resounding victory was the largest jury verdict in the history of the Sherman Division of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. Rob was likewise lead trial counsel winning two major jury trials in the widely followed Finisar litigation, one of the largest patent infringement cases in the country between competitor optical networking companies. The jury returned a verdict in favor of Mr. Kramer’s client in two trials, and within two hours of his closing argument in the second of these heavily fought jury trials.

Patexia’s annual report Best Patent Litigators of 2023 named Mr. Kramer in its ranking of the best 30 patent litigation attorneys in the country, a high honor and well-deserved recognition reserved for a select group of first chair team leader patent trial attorneys.  In addition, Patexia 2023 Patent Litigation Intelligence Report, a comprehensive analysis of the best attorneys in the country covering the period Jan. 1, 2017 through Dec. 31, 2022, gave Rob a top ranking, naming him as among the top 50 best performing and most active patent litigation attorneys in the country.

Rob, as lead counsel, and the Kramer Alberti team were included on the National Law Journal’s List of “100 Largest Verdicts in the U.S,” and honored to be named on Texas Lawyer Magazine’s “Top 10 Patent Infringement Verdicts of the Year” (winning the 3rd largest verdict). Rob has represented clients in patent disputes involving a wide range of products and industries, including wireless technologies, networking, mobile and cellular telecommunications, smart grid utility networking systems, data compression and transmission, microprocessors, power over ethernet (PoE), IEEE 802.3, programmable logic arrays (PLAs), semiconductor manufacturing and packaging equipment, light-emitting diodes (LEDs), optics and optical networks, wavelength selective switches (WSS and ROADMs), databases, software, graphics, electronic gaming, industrial equipment, chemicals and adhesives, biometric authentication, and Internet patents. In addition, Rob has worked with standard essential patents (SEP) and FRAND licensing. Rob represents universities, including U Michigan, and is a member of AUTM.

Rob was a partner and national chair of the Dentons law firm’s Patent Litigation Practice from 2012-2019 before he and his team joined Kramer Alberti (then Feinberg Day), as was widely reported in The American Lawyer, IP Law 360, and other publications. He is a frequent author and lecturer on patent and intellectual property law topics and was an adjunct professor of law at Temple University and a guest lecturer at Waseda University in Tokyo teaching patent law. Rob serves as the co-chair of the American Bar Association Intellectual Property Litigation Committee’s Section 112 Subcommittee.

He served on the Board of Governors of the Association of Business Trial Lawyers. Rob has been Chambers ranked, and he is consistently honored as a “Northern California Super Lawyer” in IP Litigation, including in 2023. He also serves on IP Law360’s California Editorial Board.

He has been recognized as a leading patent practitioner by Law360, IAM Patent 1000, Super Lawyers, Legal 500 US and BTI Consulting. Rob started his career in New York. He was a judicial extern for U.S. District Judge Kevin Duffy, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, and upon graduating from law school was a Judicial Law Clerk for Judge Richard Simons, Associate Judge of the New York Court of Appeals. He was trained as a litigation associate at a major New York law firm for five years before relocating to San Francisco/Silicon Valley to continue practicing as an intellectual property litigator where he was a full equity partner at Morrison & Foerster LLP.

He has extensive experience both representing and litigating against Asian companies in patent litigation and adversarial patent cross-licensing disputes. Rob lived in Tokyo for three years and was a registered Gaikokuho-Jimu-Bengoshi and a member of the Daini Tokyo Bar Association while a patent litigation partner in Morrison & Foerster’s Tokyo office.