Michael Jacobs is the co-founder and current co-chair of the firm's Intellectual Property Practice Group. Mr. Jacobs concentrates his practice on litigation of high-technology and intellectual property matters. He has represented information technology and life sciences companies in over 25 patent lawsuits, often prevailing at early stages of the dispute. He has also handled numerous high-profile arbitrations, several of which involved the interplay between arbitration and court proceedings.
Mr. Jacobs' work in several landmark cases has helped to shape the laws governing emerging technologies. Early in his career, he led the technical team that represented Fujitsu in its landmark operating system software arbitration with IBM. He represents Novell in the widely-reported SCO v. Novell litigation. After a three-week trial in the case in March 2010, the jury affirmed Novell's ownership of the UNIX software code and rejected SCO's claim for damages of hundreds of millions of dollars.
Before starting his legal career, Mr. Jacobs held assignments with the United States Foreign Service in Kingston, Jamaica and Washington, D.C.
While earning his J.D., Mr. Jacobs was a Senior Editor of The Yale Law Journal and co-founded the Allard K. Lowenstein International Human Rights Law Project. He currently teaches Trade Secrets at UC Berkeley Law School.