Clark James Belote

Clark James Belote — Patent Litigation Practice Summary

Focus and role. Belote is not a career patent litigator. His tracked patent appearances are consistent with a general commercial litigator slotting into Virginia federal practice as local counsel rather than as first-chair patent counsel. His only substantive patent case with a documented role is Centripetal Networks, Inc. v. Cisco Systems, Inc. (E.D. Va., 2:18-cv-00094), where he appeared for plaintiff Centripetal alongside Paul Andre and Lisa Kobialka of Kramer Levin — a network-security/cyber-threat-detection case in the Eastern District of Virginia. The second tracked matter, Security First Innovations, LLC v. Google LLC (E.D. Va., 2:23-cv-00097), is also a Virginia patent case, but the technology at issue is not documented in the sources I located, so I would not characterize it beyond the fact that it involves security-related technology asserted against Google.

Side preference. The tracked data shows one plaintiff-side and one defendant-side appearance — an even split that reflects a case-by-case local counsel practice rather than a platform representing either operating companies or NPEs/PAEs. Centripetal was patent-owner-side; Security First Innovations placed him on the defense side with Google (whose national counsel was Quinn Emanuel and whose E.D. Va. local counsel was Kaufman & Canoles colleague Stephen E. Noona). Note one data caveat: the tracked record attributes the Security First Innovations appearance to Quinn Emanuel, but public firm and bar profiles uniformly place Belote at Kaufman & Canoles, and I found no Quinn Emanuel attorney profile or case filing naming him. I could not verify a Quinn Emanuel affiliation; if the record is wrong, the Quinn Emanuel listing is likely a misattribution in the docket source.

Firm context. Belote is a Member in the Norfolk, Virginia office of Kaufman & Canoles, P.C., which he joined in September 2015 after clerking for the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia; he was elected Member in February 2022. His firm bio lists his practice groups as Litigation; Government Contracts & Construction; Bankruptcy, Creditors' Rights & Business Restructuring; and Franchising — with no intellectual property or patent practice group listed. His listed representative matters are construction, commercial, bankruptcy, franchise, and real estate disputes, and he is recognized in The Best Lawyers in America for Litigation–Construction and Litigation–Real Estate.

Notable matters and outcomes. Centripetal v. Cisco is by far the most prominent: the 2020 bench verdict of roughly $2.75 billion was vacated by the Federal Circuit and remanded for a new trial, and Belote's June 2023 Rule 63 hearing appearances on the plaintiff's behalf (with Andre and Kobialka) place him in the retrial phase of that litigation. He has no tracked Federal Circuit argument or patent verdict attributable to him personally.

PTAB / IPR experience. None identified. I found no IPR, PGR, or CBM filings naming him as counsel, nor any firm bio reference to post-grant practice, so he should not be pitched as PTAB-capable on this record.

Bar and education. Admitted in Virginia (2014); J.D., summa cum laude, University of Richmond School of Law (2014); B.A., University of Virginia. No registered patent attorney status found.