Jill Neiman is a litigation partner in the San Francisco office of Morrison & Foerster. Her practice focuses on patent litigation, appeals, and counseling. She has represented clients in cases involving a wide range of technologies, including medical devices, link blowing for memory repair, software and web technology, semiconductor fabrication, photoresist compositions, and biotechnology. Her extensive appellate experience includes eight Federal Circuit appeals.

Recently, Ms. Neiman was a member of the Morrison & Foerster team that represented Syneron Medical Ltd. in patent litigation brought by Thermage, Inc. The team defeated a preliminary injunction motion brought by Thermage on multiple grounds, allowing our client to continue selling its Polaris wrinkle treatment device in the United States and facilitating an early, favorable settlement of the case. Ms. Neiman also successfully defended Tokyo Ohka Kogyo, Inc. (TOK) in a patent infringement case brought by JSR, Inc. involving four patents relating to photoresist compositions. Final judgment was entered in favor of TOK after TOK prevailed on motions for summary judgment of non-infringement, invalidity, and limiting the damages period. In another notable case, Ms. Neiman helped Electro Scientific Industries, Inc. win a $13.1 million trial verdict in a patent infringement suit against General Scanning Inc., and successfully defended the verdict on appeal. She also represented Fujitsu in ITC litigation relating to memory devices. The case settled favorably for Fujitsu after trial.

Ms. Neiman graduated magna cum laude from Yale University in 1984, with distinction in her major, biology. Ms. Neiman received her law degree in 1991 from the University of Michigan. At Michigan, she was elected to the Order of the Coif and was a member of the Michigan Law Review . Her article, “Easement Holder Liability under CERCLA; The Right Way to Deal with Rights-of-Way,” was published in the Michigan Law Review . From 1991 to 1992, Ms. Neiman served as a law clerk to the Honorable John S. Martin of the Southern District of New York.

Prior to law school, Ms. Neiman taught English in Japanese public high schools and junior high schools in Ibaraki prefecture. She also worked for a Japanese trust bank in New York, where she arbitraged between Eurodollar futures and interest rate swaps and coordinated the computerization of a section of the bank. Ms. Neiman speaks and understands conversational Japanese.

Ms. Neiman is admitted to practice in California, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, and before the United States Patent and Trademark Office. She was recognized by Bay Area Lawyer Magazine in 2005 as one of the Best Lawyers in the Bay Area in the area of intellectual property and currently is listed in that magazine as one of the Top Lawyers in the Bay Area.