Daniel C. Callaway

Daniel C. Callaway — Patent Litigation Practice Summary

Specialty / focus areas. Callaway is an intellectual property litigator at Farella Braun + Martel LLP in San Francisco, concentrating on patent and trade-secret litigation and counseling, with secondary work in trademarks. His technical docket skews heavily toward electronics and software: integrated circuit design, storage and networking, power delivery, processor and memory design, operating system and application software, and security/virus protection, plus energy-related cases (solar, wind, battery, geothermal). He holds B.S. and M.S. degrees in electrical engineering from Johns Hopkins (1999, 2000), worked as a semiconductor engineer before law school, and is the named inventor of U.S. Patent No. 6,794,568.

Side preference. His tracked appearances show a purely defendant-side profile (1 of 1 tracked matters, lead counsel for the defendant), and his publicly reported trial work is overwhelmingly defense-side for operating companies — Google, Comcast, and CNEX Labs. He has also appeared on the patent-owner side in IPR proceedings (e.g., for Acoustic Technology), but his core practice is defending technology companies against infringement and trade-secret claims. This is consistent with the tracked count of 1 defendant appearance and 0 plaintiff appearances.

Firm context. Callaway joined Farella Braun + Martel as an associate in November 2011 from Fish & Richardson PC (Redwood City, CA) and was elevated to partner effective January 1, 2019. He is a member of the firm's AI Task Force and has been recognized by Managing Intellectual Property as an IP STARS "Patent Star" (2023, 2024).

Notable cases / outcomes. His most prominent reported results include: (1) the CNEX Labs defense — a three-week E.D. Tex. jury trial (Huawei Technologies v. CNEX Labs, 4:17-cv-00893) in June 2019 where the jury cleared CNEX of all claims (including trade-secret misappropriation, CFAA, and RICO) and found for CNEX on its trade-secret counterclaims; (2) a complete defense verdict for Google in Profectus Technologies v. Google LLC (W.D. Tex., Judge Albright, October 2021), where the jury found the asserted patent invalid and not infringed; and (3) a dismissal for Comcast of a three-patent complaint in the District of Colorado coupled with PTAB invalidations, in a matter where six IPR petitions against the three asserted patents were all instituted (Comcast v. Promptu Systems).

PTAB / IPR experience. Callaway appears regularly in IPR proceedings on both sides — as backup counsel for petitioner Juniper Networks (IPR2021-00259) and as lead/backup counsel for patent owner Acoustic Technology (IPR2017-01024, IPR2017-01030). He has commented publicly on PTAB developments for Law360, including the Supreme Court's Cuozzo decision and the PTAB's 2017 "informative" rulings.

Bar / education. J.D., UC Hastings College of the Law (2008); admitted to the California Bar (2009) and registered with the USPTO (Reg. No. 74,267).