Alex Chern

I'll research this attorney before drafting.

Alex Chern — patent litigation practice summary

Focus areas. Alex Chern is a trial lawyer at McKool Smith whose practice centers on standard-essential patent (SEP) and FRAND licensing disputes in the telecommunications and consumer-electronics space. His representative matters cluster around wireless and video-coding standards — H.264/H.265 video decoding, LTE/5G cellular, and related ITU/standards-body licensing obligations — and he also works in confidential international arbitrations and pre-suit licensing negotiations. His public practice description emphasizes breach-of-FRAND strategy and trial themes for FRAND-encumbered portfolios rather than a specific technical vertical such as pharma or mechanical arts.

Side preference. The tracked record shows a single appearance, on the plaintiff side as lead counsel (Nokia v. HP, Inc. et al.), and that is broadly consistent with the plaintiff/complainant-leaning SEP-owner work in his background (Ericsson as plaintiff against Apple, Samsung, Lenovo and IP Bridge; Nokia as complainant). At the same time, his docket is genuinely mixed: he has defended AT&T, T-Mobile, Ericsson and Nokia against Daingean Technologies, an Atlantic IP non-practicing entity. He is best characterized as a standards-essential-patent litigator who works both sides — prosecuting licensing/royalty claims for SEP holders and defending implementers against NPE assertions — rather than as a dedicated NPE or defense-only lawyer.

Firm and notable matters. He is at McKool Smith (Dallas office); the firm's own materials label him an associate, while third-party directory listings describe him as a partner — I could not independently verify the title. Before McKool Smith he clerked for Judge Amos L. Mazzant (E.D. Tex.) and worked at an unnamed international firm; no other prior firm is identified in public sources. Verified results include Daingean Technologies Ltd. v. AT&T Inc., No. 2:23-cv-00123 (E.D. Tex.), a five-day jury trial before Judge Gilstrap resulting in a defense verdict of non-infringement; the companion Daingean v. T-Mobile/Ericsson trial (verdict July 11, 2025), where the jury found non-infringement for one accused product set and awarded $2 million against a $245 million demand; Ericsson v. Lenovo, in which the ITC found Lenovo infringed four Ericsson patents before a confidential settlement; Ericsson v. Apple, settled after four days of trial; and Ericsson v. Samsung, where he helped obtain a foreign anti-antisuit (anti-interference) injunction against Samsung's Wuhan antisuit order. He is also listed among Patexia's top-performing attorneys representing ITC complainants (2024–2026 reports).

PTAB/IPR, bar, education. I found no verified record of Chern personally appearing as counsel in an IPR or PGR proceeding, though his firm represents patent owners and petitioners before the PTAB in adjacent matters; his PTAB experience should be treated as unconfirmed. He is admitted in Texas (2018), before the Federal Circuit and Fifth Circuit, and in the N.D., E.D. and W.D. Tex.; no USPTO registration number appears in public listings. Educated at the University of Texas School of Law (J.D. 2018, U.S. Supreme Court Clinic) and Southern Methodist University (B.A. 2014), and he authored a note on "hybrid witnesses" in Review of Litigation (2019).

Caveat: the tracked database lists him as lead counsel in Nokia v. HP, but the public filings I could review in the parallel D. Del. case and the ITC video-coding investigation name other McKool Smith attorneys (Lipschitz, Newcomer, Easley, Verboncoeur, Budwin) as counsel of record, so his specific role in that matter is not independently corroborated.