Diana Barrett Kruze is a partner in the Intellectual Property Litigation Group, focusing on patent, trade secret, and copyright litigation. She represents clients in a wide range of technical disciplines including nanotechnology, satellite systems, software and semiconductor processing and packaging.
Ms. Kruze has questioned witnesses and experts at trial; negotiated multimillion-dollar settlements and technology licenses; developed an international IP enforcement strategy for a Fortune 500 company involving lawsuits in Germany, China, Japan and the United States; written multiple successful motions for summary judgment in complex IP matters; saved clients hundreds of thousands of dollars in e-discovery costs; and supervised a team of approximately 100 attorneys conducting a review of more than a million documents in a two-week timeframe.
In addition to her intellectual property work, Ms. Kruze is also part of the firm’s extensive pro bono practice, focusing on LGBTQ rights. In February 2014, she was recognized in a front page article of the San Francisco Chronicle for her work helping to reunite a Cameroonian gay rights activist with her partner and their 10-month-old baby. Ms. Kruze also wrote portions of an amicus brief to the California Supreme Court brief challenging the legality of Proposition 8, and she frequently represents victims of domestic violence in securing restraining orders.
In recognition of her legal work, Ms. Kruze has received numerous awards, including:
Ms. Kruze is an adjunct professor at the University of California, Hastings College of the Law. She currently serves as a board member on the California State Bar’s Appellate Review Committee of the Judicial Nominees Evaluation Commission, as well as the Barristers Board of Directors of the Bar Association of San Francisco. She is also the fundraising co-chair of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights, the president of the board of her children’s school, a board member of the Jewish Bar Association of San Francisco, and an executive member of the BASF’s Intellectual Property Section. In 2017, Ms. Kruze was appointed by the Mayor of San Francisco to serve on the Citizen’s Committee on Community Development, which is the advisory body charged with public oversight of approximately $30 million in HUD-based annual funding allocations and policy matters directly related to community development efforts for all of San Francisco.
Ms. Kruze clerked for Judge James Ware and externed for Judge Saundra Armstrong, both of the Northern District of California. She graduated from University of California, Hastings College of the Law in the top 5% of her class and was elected to the Order of the Coif. While at Hastings, she was senior symposium editor for the Hastings Law Journal.
Phoenix Technologies Ltd. v. VMware Inc.(Northern District of California). Represented VMware in a copyright and breach of contract case involving license agreement for BIOS software. Won summary judgment on breach of contract claim. Won complete defense verdict at trial on remaining claims.
PMC v. DISH et. al.(Eastern District of Texas). Represented DISH and EchoStar in a patent litigation involving encryption of satellite signals. Case settled on favorable terms after plaintiff was unable to exclude certain evidence in pre-trial motions.
Autodesk v. ZWSOFT(Northern District of California; the Hague). Represented Autodesk in a copyright and trade secret misappropriation case involving the company’s flagship product, resulting in a favorable settlement, including public acknowledgment of wrongdoing from the defendant.
Phaedrus v. Kaiser Permanente (California State Court, Alameda County). Represented five Kaiser defendants in misappropriation, breach of contract, and unjust enrichment claims brought by a medical imaging software company. Won summary adjudication dismissing plaintiff’s contract and misappropriation claims and won trial on remaining claims, which resulted in a complete defense jury verdict.
Smartphone Litigation (Northern District of California). Member of the team that successfully tried a high-profile smartphone case leading to a jury verdict of more than $1 billion.
Northpoint v. DirecTV, et al.(Western District of Texas). Represented DISH and EchoStar in a case involving alleged infringement of a patent directed to the processing and encryption of satellite signals. Wrote successful motion of summary judgment of invalidity that resulted in dismissal of the case.
Autodesk v. Assimilate(Northern District of California). Represented Autodesk in a suit against a software company for copyright infringement, which resulted in favorable settlement, including public apology.
Network-1 Security Solutions, Inc. v. Alcatel-Lucent, Inc. (Eastern District of Texas). Represented Huawei in a multidefendant, consolidated case involving standards essential patent covering Power over Ethernet (PoE) and Quality of Service (QoS) solutions for delivery of audio, video, and data over Ethernet networks. Obtained stay of case pending outcome of an inter partes review of patent.
Elan Pharma International Limited v. Abraxis BioScience (District of Delaware). Represented Abraxis BioScience in defending its lead product, Abraxane, against claims by Elan Pharmaceuticals of infringing Elan’s patents for coated nanoparticles used to deliver paclitaxel for the treatment of metastatic breast cancer. This was the first nanotechnology patent case taken to jury trial. The case settled in 2011.
Aloft Media, LLC v. Microsoft Corp. et al. (Eastern District of Texas). Represented Yahoo! in a patent infringement lawsuit involving browser and bookmarking technology. Shortly after oral argument on the summary judgment motions, the parties settled the case.
Vernor v. Autodesk (Western District of Washington; Ninth Circuit). Represented Autodesk in seminal case regarding software licensing and the first-sale doctrine under copyright law. Morrison & Foerster was brought in to defend Autodesk after the motion to dismiss was denied. On appeal, the Ninth Circuit reversed the district court and held that the first-sale doctrine does not apply to licensed software.
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