Industries

Over the course of many years of representing technology companies, we have coupled our legal expertise with a deep understanding of our clients' technologies, business needs and strategic goals. As such, we have delivered creative legal solutions that are aligned with our client's business objectives.

We represent clients at all stages of the corporate life cycle, from entrepreneurs, start-up companies and venture capital firms to U.S. and multinational public companies. We provide the full gamut of legal services to our technology clients, from corporate and securities, labor and employment, real estate, intellectual property counseling and litigation to complex commercial litigation.

Our clients are cutting-edge hardware, software, semiconductor, telecommunications and e-commerce companies. We represent technology purchasers with respect to complex, multimillion-dollar purchases and strategic technology initiatives. We also represent online content providers, auction and exchange companies, application service providers and colocation and managed hosting providers. For these clients, we draft business plans, form corporations and partnerships, structure financing arrangements, counsel regarding intellectual property development and protection and handle licensing and distribution arrangements. Our attorneys have participated in dozens of public offerings for technology companies. In each case, we meet our clients' needs using a collaborative approach that leverages the experience of attorneys in all of our practice areas to achieve exceptional results.

• Corporate & Securities - corporate formation; angel and venture capital financings; strategic corporate investments and joint ventures; mergers and acquisitions; equity and debt public offerings; PIPE transactions; corporate governance compliance; and tax.
• Employment - employment and consulting arrangements; employment and labor counseling and compliance; equity incentive plans; and executive compensation counseling.
• Product Development & Distribution - intellectual property acquisition, including proprietary information and inventions, development and professional services agreements; strategic collaborations and licenses; and manufacturing, distribution, and hosted application transactions.
• Intellectual Property Counseling and Litigation - patent, trademark, and copyright counseling and portfolio management; and copyright, trademark, trade secret and patent litigation.
• Litigation - commercial disputes; product liability; appellate litigation; securities litigation; internal investigations and compliance reviews; and defense of government investigations.
• Real Estate - acquisitions, dispositions and financings; commercial leasing, joint ventures, construction projects, workouts and restructuring; environmental matters; and complex litigation.
• Technology infrastructure - equipment purchasing and leasing; and telecommunications, bandwidth, colocation, managed hosting, and content delivery agreements.

Representative Engagements

Our patent litigators and business attorneys represented Research in Motion Ltd. (RIM) in its widely publicized litigation and settlement with NTP, a patent assertion company that sought to shut down RIM’s sales of BlackBerry products and services in the United States. The litigation and settlement were extensively covered in the media and involved such cutting legal edge issues as the ability of courts to deny injunctive relief to patent assertion companies, the effect that the invalidation of patents by the Patent and Trademark Office may have on ongoing litigation, and the extraterritorial reach of U.S. patent law. Howard Rice served as one of RIM's principal counsel commencing with RIM's appeal of the original trial court ruling to the Federal Circuit.

Howard Rice was the primary outside counsel to PalmSource, Inc. (now named ACCESS Systems Americas, Inc.), the developer and licensor of the Palm operating system for mobile information devices. We represented PalmSource during its spin-off from Palm, Inc., and advised the company on a broad range of issues common to public technology companies, from creating and protecting intellectual property to complying with public company reporting requirements. Our attorneys represented PalmSource in its follow-on offering of common stock, negotiated strategic development and distribution agreements with Research In Motion to bring BlackBerry functionality to the Palm platform, and advised the company in its acquisition of China MobileSoft.

We represent Tower Semiconductor Ltd., an Israel-based independent wafer foundry that specializes in embedded solutions, CMOS image sensor and mixed signal technologies and whose shares are listed on Nasdaq and the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange. We have represented Tower in a host of technology transactions, including patent licenses and cross-licenses, development and customization agreements and service and support agreements. Our attorneys also advise Tower regarding employment, tax, real estate and other legal issues it faces as an international technology company.

We represent Digital River, Inc., a leading e-commerce outsourcing company that builds and manages e-commerce sites for software publishers, online retailers and hard goods companies. We advise Digital River regarding corporate and securities issues and with respect to the constantly changing legal landscape for online businesses. Howard Rice attorneys have represented the company in connection with several public equity offerings, significant debt financings and numerous acquisitions.

We have represented the Hewlett-Packard Company in numerous cases in California, New York, Illinois, Florida and other states against parties who have sold or distributed counterfeit goods, including printer cartridges, memory cards and other products. In conjunction with this work, we represent the company in its dealings with the U.S. Customs Service, including intellectual property recordation, education of Customs inspectors, and coordination of seizures of counterfeit goods. We have also represented the company, both as a plaintiff and as a defendant, in trademark infringement matters, including both court cases and matters before the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board.

The firm represented Grouper Networks, Inc. in its formation and two subsequent venture financings. In addition, we have advised the company with respect to intellectual property and strategic partnering issues. Grouper provides a file-sharing service for the private use of small groups of friends and family members.

We represented Genentech, Inc. in the California Supreme Court in an appeal of a $500+ million judgment, which included $200 million of punitive damages.  The punitive damages award was the largest ever upheld in a published appellate decision in California, until the California Supreme Court overturned that award unanimously in 2008.  The case involved the cutting-edge question of whether Genentech could be held to have owed and breached a fiduciary duty to a researcher when Genentech failed to pay royalties due to the researcher.

We represent TOSHIBA Corporation in complex trade secret matters now before the California Supreme Court.

Representative Clients

• ACCESS Systems Americas, Inc.
• ACCPAC International
• Amazon Digital Services, Inc.  
• Ariba, Inc.
• BridgeLux Inc.
• Digital River, Inc.
• Genentech, Inc.
• Hewlett-Packard Company
• Maxager Technology, Inc.
• National Display Systems
• Navis LLC
• PalmSource, Inc.
• Research In Motion Limited 
• Salesforce.com
• Sharp Electronics Corporation
• Technology Crossover Ventures
• TOSHIBA Corporation
• Tower Semiconductor Ltd.
• Transmeta Corporation
• Vivendi Universal Games
• Vocera Communications, Inc.