Jose Carlos Villarreal

Jose Carlos Villarreal — Patent Litigation Practice Summary

Specialty / focus areas. Villarreal is a patent litigation and trial attorney whose practice centers on technology and growth-company clients across a broad electrical/software spectrum: semiconductor manufacturing and circuits, networking and communications, SaaS/CRM software, artificial intelligence, diagnostic devices, 3D printing, video games, and autonomous vehicles (Baker Botts profile; Kinney Recruiting announcement). His electrical-engineering background (M.Eng., Cornell) and pre-legal career in network systems engineering at Bell Communications Research inform his technical docket. He litigates primarily in the Western and Eastern Districts of Texas, Delaware, and California, with experience before the ITC and Federal Circuit.

Side preference. His practice is overwhelmingly defense-side. The single tracked appearance is as lead counsel for a defendant at Baker Botts, and his firm-profile matter list is uniformly defense work: representing a multi-defendant group against a patent-assertion plaintiff, defending a Dow 30 software company, and defending an orthodontics-software company. There is no evidence of NPE/PAE plaintiff-side enforcement work.

Firm context. Villarreal is a partner in Baker Botts' Intellectual Property Department in Austin, having rejoined the firm in September 2022 (Kinney Recruiting; Baker Botts news). Earlier career stops relevant to his IP practice include Wilson Sonsini (partner for 15+ years and Austin IP practice lead), Perkins Coie (founding managing partner of its Austin office, 2020–2022), Brobeck Phleger & Harrison, and Arnold White & Durkee. He is a past chair of the UT Law Advanced Patent Law Institute planning committee.

Notable cases / PTAB experience. His firm profile highlights several results: final judgment for a Dow 30 software company in the N.D. Cal. affirmed at the Federal Circuit; lead counsel for nine defendants in what the profile describes as the first parallel PTAB/E.D. Tex./Federal Circuit proceedings, including the interlocutory appeal that reversed a stay denial pending CBM review and set precedent — a description matching VirtualAgility v. Salesforce.com, No. 2014-1232 (Fed. Cir. 2014), after which the PTAB canceled all claims and the suit was dismissed with prejudice; and a precedential Federal Circuit decision on § 112 means-plus-function claims in educational-software litigation that led to dismissal. He is regularly before the PTAB (CBM/IPR) and is a USPTO-registered practitioner; docket filings also show him as lead pro hac vice counsel for a defendant in N.D. Cal. Case No. 3:23-cv-05047-AMO.

Bar / education. Admitted to the Texas bar (1997) and the Federal Circuit; J.D., Georgetown (1997, cum laude); M.Eng. in electrical engineering, Cornell (1988); B.S. in electrical engineering, University of Florida (1986). Recognized in IAM Patent 1000, Best Lawyers, and Texas Super Lawyers.