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Mr. Staniford's practice encompasses patent preparation and prosecution, infringement and validity analysis including the preparation of formal opinions, and intellectual property litigation. Mr. Staniford also specializes in counseling emerging growth companies with respect to IP portfolio development and management. Mr. Staniford has extensive experience in a wide range of technologies in the electrical engineering field, including: analog and digital circuits, microprocessors, data compression, audio/video codecs, semiconductor fabrication, networks and transmission technology, medical devices, and nuclear assay systems. Mr. Staniford started his legal career at Blakely, Sokoloff, Taylor & Zafman working for clients such as Intel, Apple, and Sun Microsystems. His current representative clients include AMD, Dolby Laboratories, Horton Works, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, along with a number of high-tech startups.
Mr. Staniford's litigation experience includes successfully defending claims of copyright and patent infringement brought by a Fortune 500 company against a small client in the field of tape backup software. He has also prevailed in a summary judgment claim against an infringement action brought against a client in the field of Internet Protocol network devices. Prior to attending law school, Mr. Staniford worked as an electrical engineer and product manager in the aerospace and defense industry, specializing in assembly language programming and porting real-time operating systems to high performance, single-board computers in the VMEbus industry. Mr. Staniford attended the University of California, Berkeley majoring in Applied Mathematics and received his Bachelor of Science Degree in Electrical Engineering Technology from California State Polytechnic Univeristy, Pomona in 1989. He received his Juris Doctor degree from the University of San Francisco School of Law in 1996. Mr. Staniford has written about University-Industry technology transfers and has presented on the topic at an academic conference in Nagoya, Japan. He received his Juris Doctor degree from the University of San Francisco School of Law.
Mr. Lau's practice includes: patent preparation and prosecution, infringement and invalidity analysis, trademarks, and intellectual property counseling. He has prepared and prosecuted numerous patent applications for the computer software arts including cloud computing, social networking, mobile security, collaboration, virtualization, memory management, data back-up and recovery, GUIs, e-learning, and enterprise information management systems.
Mr. Lau's clients include: Better Chinese, Cafyne, EMC, Toma Ramirez, Zentera and other start up companies. Prior to entering the legal profession, Mr. Lau was a product manager at an Internet startup and Oracle. Lawrence earned a Bachelor of Science in civil engineering from Carnegie Mellon and a Masters of Science from Stanford University. Mr. Lau earned a J.D., with honors, from the University of San Francisco School of Law and served as an extern for U.S. District Judge William Alsup.
Job Titles:
- Adjunct Professor at the University School of Law
Mr. Tomita's practice includes: patent preparation and prosecution, infringement and invalidity analysis including the preparation of formal opinions, trademarks, and copyrights. Mr. Tomita has extensive experience in a wide range of technologies including: electrical, mechanical, medical devices, optical equipment, semiconductor fabrication, computer networks, encryption, cloud storage, and green energy systems. Mr. Tomita started his career as a patent attorney for Nikon Research Corporation of America. His current representative clients include: 3D Systems, Affirm, Angel List, Appcelerator, Asymmetrica, Axway, Basecoin, Codasip, Deepflight, Dell, EMC, Guardian Bike Company, Hard Valuable Fun (HVF), Inhalio, Glow, MountainFilm, Papers Please, Resilient Networks, StartupBros, Sutro, WebShield, and numerous startups including Guardian Bike Company which was featured on Shark Tank.
Mr. Tomita is an adjunct professor at the University School of Law teaching patent law for the Entrepreneurial Ventures Legal Services Clinic. Mr. Tomita also an advisor, lecturer, and mentor for: the Telluride Venture Accelerator and the Cal Poly Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE). Mr. Tomita has also written articles for Edison Nation Medical.
Mr. Tomita's reexamination experience includes successfully invalidating all claims of patents owned by Dartmouth University which were licensed to Wyath Pharmaceuticals. The client was able to manufacture without any disruption and continues to sell product without having to pay royalty or licensing fees.
Mr. Tomita has a Bachelor of Science Degree in Mechanical Engineering from California State University in San Luis Obispo and a Juris Doctor from the University of San Francisco School of Law. Mr. Tomita also completed the Goldman Sachs Babson 10KSB program with a certificate in Entrepreneurship. Mr. Tomita previously worked as a design engineer for the consumer electronics company Monster Cable and semiconductor fabrication companies Veriflo Corporation and Nikon Research Corporation of America.