Project Description

Practice Areas

IP litigation, patents, trademarks, copyrights, trade secrets, licensing and IP counseling

Highlights

Michael D. Harris joined SoCal IP Law Group in May 2007, as a partner in the firm.

Mr. Harris has focused his legal practice on intellectual property, concentrating on IP litigation as well as patent and trademark filings. He started his career as a patent examiner with the United States Patent and Trademark Office during law school.

Mr. Harris spent most of his career as a partner of Poms, Smith, Lande & Rose, a former intellectual property boutique in Los Angeles. When Poms, Smith merged with the international firm of Oppenheimer Wolfe and Donnelly, he became a partner of that firm. Mr. Harris then joined Kleinberg & Lerner in 2003.

While he was in those firms, he spent most of his time litigating patent and trademark matters in the federal court in Los Angeles and in other federal courts in California and elsewhere in the United States. However, he continued filing and prosecuting patent and trademark applications and advising clients about potential infringement and avoiding infringement.

He has been active in bar association activities and was president of the Century City Bar Association and a trustee of the Los Angeles County Bar Association. He is a member of the American Bar Association and the Los Angeles Intellectual property Law Association.

Mr. Harris believes that filing and prosecuting patents and trademarks improves patent and trademark litigation strategy.

Mr. Harris’s litigation expertise includes

  • Win at trial against one party leads to favorable settlement with another party in right of publicity case.
  • Obtained favorable patent licenses after filing suit against companies that had refused to negotiate.
  • Sued the federal government for patent infringement.
  • Won trade dress infringement suit on summary judgment.
  • Won cybersquating cases.
  • Settled patent infringement suit against defendant client after uncovering plaintiff-inventor’s invalidating acts.
  • Stopped luxury goods manufacturer from using client’s trademark.
  • Representing defendant accused of patent infringement, obtained invalidity ruling from Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.

Admitted to the Bar

California and District of Columbia; Federal trial and appellate courts including the United States Supreme Court, Ninth Circuit, Federal Circuit, and Court of Federal Claims. Admitted to practice before the United States Patent and Trademark Office.

Education

Purdue University, B.S. Engineering, 1969
American University Law School, Washington D.C., J.D., 1972