Meet Your Team

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Chad R. Walsh

Senior IP Counsel

| Silicon Valley
TELEPHONE
(408) 260-3071

Mr. Walsh is the founder of Fountainhead Law and has over 30 years of experience working in the Silicon Valley technology industry as a technologist and patent counselor. His clients include large corporations, medium sized companies, and startups.

Mr. Walsh specializes in advising clients on patent and related intellectual property matters pertaining to research, development, and capitalization of emerging technologies.  Mr. Walsh has extensive experience crafting patents and IP strategies, developing IP portfolios, and analyzing and negotiating IP licensing and pooling arrangements.  Mr. Walsh is often consulted by companies, VCs, and individual investors to perform “deep dive” due diligence regarding startups and mergers & acquisitions as well as other issues at the intersection of technology, business, and law.

Prior to founding Fountainhead Law, Mr. Walsh was a patent litigator at Townsend and Townsend and Crew (now Kilpatrick Townsend) and a Deputy District Attorney in Silicon Valley where he conducted several jury trials every month.  He has never lost a trial, except for one hung jury (the case was not re-tried).  Mr. Walsh’s litigation engagements include:

  • Cypress Semiconductor v. ICS – Counsel for ICS, patent infringement, ITC and Federal Court.
  • Informatica v. Business Objects – Counsel for Business Objects, patent infringement, Federal Court.
  • Microstrategy v. Business Objects – Counsel for Business Objects, patent infringement/contract issues, Federal Court.
  • E-Pass Technologies, Inc. v. Visa – Counsel for VISA, patent infringement, Federal Court.

Mr. Walsh started his career as an electrical engineer with National Semiconductor Corp.  He went on to become lead in-house IP strategist for the Analog Division of National (over 70% of the company at the time).

Mr. Walsh specializes in combining his strong technical skills together with his extensive patent litigation and trial experience in representing clients in all aspects of IP Law.

Mr. Walsh has donated enormous amounts of time to giving back to an area he is passionate about – Education.  He served as an Adjunct Professor of IP Law at Santa Clara University and other law schools, a founder and advisor to the Mission College Center for Information Technology (MC2IT), and served for almost a decade as a Trustee on the West Valley Mission Community College District Board of Trustees.

In his free time, Chad enjoys sailing in distant corners of the world, Pilates, wine tasting, skiing, mountain bike riding, and adventure travel.

EDUCATION

Santa Clara University School of Law, J.D.

Santa Clara University
Master of Science, Electrical Engineering

University of California, San Diego
Bachelor of Science, Electrical Engineering

ADMISSIONS

State Bar of California

United States Patent & Trademark Office

District Court, Northern District of California

District Court, Southern District of California

District Court, Central District of California

Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit

Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit

Chad R. Walsh

Senior IP Counsel

| Silicon Valley
TELEPHONE
(408) 260-3071

Mr. Walsh is the founder of Fountainhead Law and has over 30 years of experience working in the Silicon Valley technology industry as a technologist and patent counselor. His clients include large corporations, medium sized companies, and startups.

Mr. Walsh specializes in advising clients on patent and related intellectual property matters pertaining to research, development, and capitalization of emerging technologies.  Mr. Walsh has extensive experience crafting patents and IP strategies, developing IP portfolios, and analyzing and negotiating IP licensing and pooling arrangements.  Mr. Walsh is often consulted by companies, VCs, and individual investors to perform “deep dive” due diligence regarding startups and mergers & acquisitions as well as other issues at the intersection of technology, business, and law.

Prior to founding Fountainhead Law, Mr. Walsh was a patent litigator at Townsend and Townsend and Crew (now Kilpatrick Townsend) and a Deputy District Attorney in Silicon Valley where he conducted several jury trials every month.  He has never lost a trial, except for one hung jury (the case was not re-tried).  Mr. Walsh’s litigation engagements include:

  • Cypress Semiconductor v. ICS – Counsel for ICS, patent infringement, ITC and Federal Court.
  • Informatica v. Business Objects – Counsel for Business Objects, patent infringement, Federal Court.
  • Microstrategy v. Business Objects – Counsel for Business Objects, patent infringement/contract issues, Federal Court.
  • E-Pass Technologies, Inc. v. Visa – Counsel for VISA, patent infringement, Federal Court.

Mr. Walsh started his career as an electrical engineer with National Semiconductor Corp.  He went on to become lead in-house IP strategist for the Analog Division of National (over 70% of the company at the time).

Mr. Walsh specializes in combining his strong technical skills together with his extensive patent litigation and trial experience in representing clients in all aspects of IP Law.

Mr. Walsh has donated enormous amounts of time to giving back to an area he is passionate about – Education.  He served as an Adjunct Professor of IP Law at Santa Clara University and other law schools, a founder and advisor to the Mission College Center for Information Technology (MC2IT), and served for almost a decade as a Trustee on the West Valley Mission Community College District Board of Trustees.

In his free time, Chad enjoys sailing in distant corners of the world, Pilates, wine tasting, skiing, mountain bike riding, and adventure travel.

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900 Lafayette Street, Suite 301 Santa Clara, California 95050
(408) 244-6319

LINKS

iP lawyers
for Innovative Companies

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Fintech

Ensenta, Inc. (acquired by Private Equity fund)

After linking Ensenta’s core technology innovations to its target market space, Fountainhead successfully navigated Ensenta’s patents through the Patent Office to protect their innovations and markets. Over the years, Fountainhead worked with Ensenta to successfully fend off IP attacks from competitors. These efforts culminated in a successful exit when the company was sold to a private equity firm.

Microelectronics

Power Analog Microelectronics (acquired by Diodes Inc.)

Power Analog Microelectronics (PAM) was a multinational analog and mixed signal startup. Fountainhead’s expertise in analog, mixed signal, and global IP strategy helped PAM to build a comprehensive IP program to support their global marketing efforts, leading to a successful acquisition by Diodes Inc.

Microelectronics

Summit Microelectronics (acquired by Qualcomm Inc.)

Summit’s battery charging technology changed the world. When Summit invented a charging algorithm that reduced battery charge time by orders of magnitude (“TurboCharge”), they turned to Fountainhead to protect these vital IP assets. Knowing that companies around the world would stop at nothing to “design around” Summit’s innovations, Fountainhead worked with Summit engineers to craft numerous claim strategies to make their IP as impregnable as possible. Summit was later sold to Qualcomm for hundreds of millions of dollars based in large part on their IP portfolio, portions of which was later asserted against Apple.

Software

SAP is a global leader in business process software. Since the seminal Supreme Court case of Alice Corp. v CLS Bank, which significantly raised the bar for patenting business process software patents, protecting these key IP assets has been no easy task. For almost two decades, Fountainhead Law has worked with SAP to lead the field in patenting business process software patents, having successfully obtained hundreds of valid and granted patents for SAP and other clients in this nuanced and challenging technology space.

Wireless

When wireless titan Qualcomm launched its seminal patent lawsuit against Apple, from over 200,000 patents in their arsenal, they selected just 12 patents deemed capable of withstanding the rigors of Apple’s rigorous patent defenses. Fountainhead Law proudly prosecuted two (2) of the selected 12 Qualcomm patents, contributing to Qualcomm’s favorable settlement with Apple of this epic patent battle.

Software Systems​

When Microsoft’s new CEO, Satya Nadella, set out to transform Microsoft’s strategic vision, the legal team turned to Fountainhead’s broad range of expertise in software, hardware, AI, and other technologies to protect the new technology areas that Microsoft was venturing into. Fountainhead has helped Microsoft preserve the wealth of innovations along their technology roadmaps from software to AI and spanning both the analog and digital semiconductor worlds.