Liam Lavery

Liam Lavery serves as General Counsel for video game and hardware company Valve Corporation, where he oversees the company's legal affairs, including intellectual property litigation. His practice is focused on defending the company against patent infringement claims related to software, video games, and computer hardware. Before joining Valve in 2010, Lavery was in-house counsel at Zillow.com and previously worked at the law firm K&L Gates, where he advised technology and media companies on IP and distribution matters. His career has been consistently focused on representing operating companies in the technology sector.

Based on the provided data, Lavery has represented Valve as in-house counsel in significant patent litigation. This includes his role overseeing the defense in Ironburg Inventions Ltd. v. Valve Corporation. The case concerned a patent on a video game controller and resulted in a district court verdict of willful infringement and over $4 million in damages against Valve. The matter also involved a complex appeal to the Federal Circuit that addressed key issues of IPR estoppel, clarifying that the patent owner bears the burden of proof to show that prior art could have been found by a skilled searcher.

While the Ironburg case involved an IPR petition filed by Valve, public records do not indicate that Lavery personally appears as counsel in PTAB proceedings; his role is one of corporate oversight. His work also extends to other legal and regulatory matters for Valve, such as responding to the Washington State Gambling Commission regarding "skin gambling" issues.

Mr. Lavery received his B.A. from Harvard University and his J.D. from the University of Michigan Law School.