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Jeffrey R. Chanin
Partner

Email: jchanin@kvn.com
Tel: 415.391.5400

Education:
University of Chicago Law School, 1980
Brown University, 1976

Jeffrey Chanin has been with Keker & Van Nest since 1982 and became a partner in 1985. Before joining the firm he served as the first law clerk to Circuit Judge Richard Posner, now Chief Judge, United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, and before that clerked for District Court Judge Patrick Higginbotham (Northern District of Texas), now Circuit Judge, United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.

Jeff was named California Lawyer's 2010 "Attorney of the Year" in intellectual property, and American Lawyer's "Litigator of the Week" in November, 2009. He is listed in Best Lawyers of America, Northern California Super Lawyers, and Chambers USA's "America's Leading Lawyers for Business."

Jeff's practice spans the range of complex intellectual property and business litigation, as well as white collar criminal defense. He has had significant experience and success at trial representing both plaintiffs and defendants in civil cases involving high-tech trade secret misappropriation, patent infringement, and copyright. He has successfully represented defendants in criminal cases involving false claims, defense procurement fraud, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, and money laundering. Jeff was lead counsel in the successful defense of several Bay Area companies during the Pentagon's "Ill Winds" defense procurement fraud investigations.

Jeff's notable cases include trial counsel for TSMC in Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. ("TSMC") v. Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. ("SMIC") (patent infringement, trade secrets - won two trials and recovered over $500 million for TSMC); counsel for Cadence in Cadence Design Systems v. Avant! (trade secrets, copyright) 125 F.3d 824 (9th Cir. 1997) (The American Lawyer, Jan./Feb. 1998 and Nov. 1999); defense counsel in Steel v. Kendall Jackson Winery (trade secrets, contracts); defense counsel in Target Therapeutics v. Cordis Endovascular Systems (patent infringement) 113 F.3d 1256 (Fed. Cir. 1997); counsel for Palm in Palm Computing v. Olivetti Office USA (trade secrets, copyright); defense counsel in United States v. Harris Corp. (Foreign Corrupt Practices Act); defense counsel in Tolhurst v. Johnson & Johnson (product liability) (Mealey's Emerging Toxic Torts, Dec. 1996); defense counsel in Katz v. Silicon Graphics, Inc. (securities fraud); defense counsel in Ventritex v. Intermedics (trade secrets, patent infringement) (822 F.Supp. 634) (N.D. Cal. 1993) (listed by the National Law Journal as one of the Top Ten Defense Verdicts of 1992); plaintiff's counsel in Therma-Wave v. Jenoptik (patent infringement); defense counsel in Informix v. Oracle Corp. (trade secrets, employment); defense counsel in United States v. Hilger (admiralty, manslaughter) 867 F.2d 566 (9th Cir. 1989); plaintiff's counsel in Sonoma-Cutrer v. California Wine Commission (First Amendment).

Jeff graduated magna cum laude from Brown University in 1976. In 1977 he directed the Rhode Island Bail Project under the sponsorship of the Rhode Island Governor's Justice Commission and the U.S. Law Enforcement Assistance Administration, leading to a revision of Rhode Island's pre-trial release practices. Jeff graduated cum laude from the University of Chicago Law School in 1980, where he served as an associate editor of the Law Review and was awarded the Order of the Coif.

Jeff is admitted to practice before the California and District of Columbia bars, and numerous federal courts. He is a member of the Board of the Northern California American Business Trial Lawyer's Association, a fellow of the American Bar Foundation, and former Chair of the American Bar Association Subcommittee on Uniform Trade Secrets Act/Federal Protection for Trade Secrets.