Clayton Thompson

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Clayton W. Thompson — patent litigation practice summary

Focus areas. Thompson's practice centers on complex computer and electronics technologies rather than life sciences or mechanical arts. Case records and firm bios describe work on mobile devices, computer hardware and operating-system software, semiconductor/NAND flash memory (including stacked-die and memory-interface patents), network security (firewalls, intrusion detection, security certificate management), and digital content/DRM. His most-tracked matter, Intellectual Ventures II LLC v. BBVA Compass Bancshares (N.D. Ala.), involved online-banking and network-security patents; recent docket listings show him on patent and antitrust/patent-overlap matters (Xockets, Inc. v. NVIDIA Corp., W.D. Tex.), and 2026 firm announcements highlight ITC and cross-border patent work. I found no pharma, mechanical, or standards-essential Wi-Fi practice in the record.

Side preference. The tracked data here is thin — a single appearance, on the plaintiff side, as trial counsel for Intellectual Ventures II in the BBVA Compass action — but the broader docket history shows a genuinely mixed practice. During his Feinberg Day years he represented patent holders and monetization entities as plaintiffs (Intellectual Ventures I/II, OpenTV, Inc. v. NFL Enterprises, Pragmatus Telecom LLC v. LiveOps, Talon Research, LLC v. Toshiba, Imageware Systems v. WCC Services). At DLA Piper he also appeared for technology-company defendants, signing substitution papers for Apple Inc. in DSS Technology Management v. Apple (N.D. Cal.) and, earlier, logging substantial hours for Toshiba in the Hynix flash-memory litigations. Net: he is not a one-sided NPE or defense specialist; he has worked both sides of the "v." in electronics patent cases.

Firm context. The tracked appearance places him at Feinberg Day Alberti & Thompson, the Silicon Valley IP boutique he co-founded in February 2011 after leaving DLA Piper (the firm name carried his surname until his 2018 departure, when it became Feinberg Day Alberti Lim & Belloli). He returned to DLA Piper as a partner in its IP and Technology practice in Silicon Valley in March 2018. As reported in July 2026 (The American Lawyer, firm announcements), he subsequently joined Winston Taylor as a partner in its IP litigation practice, based in Washington, D.C., alongside Jake Zolotorev, Carrie Williamson, and Daniel Valencia.

Notable matters and outcomes. In Intellectual Ventures II v. BBVA Compass Bancshares he was plaintiff's trial counsel; the case ended badly for his client — Compass obtained a dismissal with prejudice after PTAB proceedings invalidated the asserted patents and the Federal Circuit affirmed. He was one of six Feinberg Day attorneys disqualified in Talon Research v. Toshiba America Electronic Components (N.D. Cal. 2012), where Judge William Alsup found the firm's 3,000-plus hours of prior Toshiba representation created a disqualifying conflict and ordered the firm to phase itself out — a well-documented adverse ruling, not a win. He also represented OpenTV and Pragmatus in patent suits.

PTAB / IPR. I could not verify regular IPR/PGR appearances by Thompson. The IV/BBVA Compass patents were the subject of multiple IPRs and a CBM review that reached the Federal Circuit, but those petitions were filed by the bank defendants (Jones Day, Kutak Rock), while Thompson appeared for the patent owner in the co-pending district court case; a district-court patent tutorial transcript in that matter is in the CBM record. Treat any IPR practice characterization as unsupported on current sources.

Bar / education. J.D., Mercer University Walter F. George School of Law (1997); B.S.E.E., Virginia Tech; admitted to practice 1998, California bar member (No. 291331).

Sourcing note: firm bios, Law360 docket listings, Justia/CourtListener filings, ALI/ABA Journal and Courthouse News coverage of the Talon disqualification, and 2026 laterals reporting for the Winston Taylor move. Some docket-history details come from third-party aggregators (UniCourt, PlainSite) and are cited as such; none of the case-outcome statements above rely on the case tracker alone.