Michael Vella is a Partner in the Litigation Department of Morrison & Foerster LLP, and is the Head of China Litigation and Intellectual Property in China. Mr. Vella assists clients in the litigation of international business disputes, including cases involving intellectual property, securities, antitrust, products liability and international arbitration. Mr. Vella also counsels clients in the electronics and biotechnology industries regarding litigation avoidance and adversarial license negotiations. Before relocating to the firm’s Shanghai office, Mr. Vella was ranked as one of the top Intellectual Property Litigation Lawyers in Southern California by Super Lawyers.

Mr. Vella has long experience representing clients in international IP disputes, including patent, copyright and trademark litigation. For example, on the defense side, Mr. Vella successfully represented semiconductor manufacturer, Macronix, (旺宏電子), in a patent case against Atmel Corporation. The case settled favorably for Macronix after Mr. Vella won a bench trial invalidating Atmel’s circuit patent and won a summary judgment motion invalidating all but one of the claims of Atmel’s process patent. On the plaintiff’s side, Mr. Vella successfully represented Nikon in a semiconductor lithography patent case against ASM Lithography. Morrison & Foerster took over the case after Nikon had lost a related ITC proceeding against ASML. After persuading the court to reject the ITC’s claim construction and instead adopt a more favorable construction for Nikon, the case settled with a US$ 145 million payment to Nikon.

Mr. Vella is a member of the California Bar and is admitted to practice in the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, Third Circuit, and Ninth Circuit. Mr. Vella served as a law clerk to the Honorable Roger B. Andewelt of the United States Court of Federal Claims. Mr. Vella earned his B.A. and J.D. degrees at U.C. Berkeley and studied the law of the European Union at the College of Europe in Bruges, Belgium.

Representative Matters

• Atmel v. Macronix America, Inc.: Successfully represented Macronix America, Inc. in a patent dispute involving semiconductor fabrication and circuit technology, including winning a bench trial on inventorship.
• Nikon v. ASML: Represented Nikon in a multinational patent dispute with ASML and achieved a US$ 145 million settlement for Nikon despite taking over the case after Nikon lost a related ITC case.
• Kyocera Wireless v. Dicam: Obtained an early and favorable settlement for our client, Kyocera Wireless, after filing an early summary judgment motion for non-infringement.
• Stratagene v. Invitrogen Corp.: After defeating Stratagene’s summary judgment motion and successfully petitioning the Patent Office to reexamine the asserted patent, Mr. Vella obtained favorable settlement for Invitrogen in this patent case involving thermostable polymerases for DNA amplification.