Chips sit under everything, and so do the legal fights over them: patent wars, trade secret claims, foundry disputes, and tightening export controls. We work with semiconductor companies across the value chain, from fabless designers to equipment and materials suppliers, on protecting your IP, structuring supply relationships, and standing up to the disputes that define this industry.
Protecting Chip IP
Semiconductor IP is dense and fiercely contested, often turning on a single process step or circuit block. Our attorneys' technical background lets us draft patents that read on real silicon and survive scrutiny. We build patent strategies for chip architectures and fabrication processes, register mask works, run IP due diligence for financings and acquisitions, and manage portfolios across the major jurisdictions where you compete.
Supply Chain And Foundry Deals
Most chip companies do not own their fabs, which makes your foundry and supplier contracts the backbone of the business. We negotiate foundry, packaging, and test agreements, lock down capacity commitments and yield terms, and protect your designs as they move through third-party manufacturing. We also paper the licensing and IP-sharing arrangements that come with joint development, so the value you create stays clearly yours.
Export Controls And Disputes
Semiconductors face some of the heaviest export scrutiny of any product, and the rules keep moving. We advise on export controls and licensing for sensitive technology and end users, and we litigate the disputes that follow chip IP everywhere, including patent infringement, trade secret misappropriation, ITC Section 337 investigations, license breach claims, and arbitration. The stakes are high, so we prepare accordingly.