Robert A. Appleby

Robert A. Appleby is a partner in the Intellectual Property Litigation Group at Kirkland & Ellis LLP, focusing his practice on a broad range of intellectual property disputes, including patents, copyrights, trade secrets, and related contract, unfair competition, and antitrust claims. He primarily represents clients in matters involving electrical arts, such as internet data networking, wireless telephony, audio and video compression, optical amplifiers, internet browsers, and software, and has experience with design patent matters.

Mr. Appleby has significant experience representing both plaintiffs and defendants in patent litigation. While his tracked appearances include defending two operating companies and prosecuting for one, his firm profile highlights a balanced practice, having secured substantial plaintiff-side verdicts for Lucent Technologies ($1.53 billion for audio-compression patents and $357 million for user-interface patents). He has also achieved notable defense victories, including a complete defense verdict of noninfringement and invalidity for Alcatel-Lucent against Wi-LAN, a summary judgment of patent invalidity for TIBCO Software, and successfully overturning a multimillion-dollar jury verdict on appeal for Osram Sylvania, resulting in a judgment of noninfringement. His prior firm experience includes an associate role at Pennie & Edmonds LLP from 1994 to 1998.

In his tracked cases, Mr. Appleby served as lead counsel for Apple Inc. in Marshall Feature Recognition, LLC et al. v. Apple Inc., representing the company in an infringement action related to smartphone technology. He was counsel for Intel Corporation in Intel Corporation v. Greenthread, LLC, a matter also involving Inter Partes Review (IPR) proceedings. Additionally, he acted as of counsel for Mojang AB in Uniloc Luxembourg S.A. v. Mojang AB, a patent infringement case concerning anti-piracy measures in Android applications, which was dismissed with prejudice. Mr. Appleby is actively involved in PTAB and IPR proceedings, having represented clients such as Intel and Samsung in these forums.

He is admitted to the New York bar (1995) and the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Mr. Appleby earned his J.D., magna cum laude, from Georgetown University Law Center (1994), an M.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Rochester (1991), and a B.S. in Computer Engineering with High Honors from Rochester Institute of Technology (1988).