Stanley Young

Stanley Young is a seasoned patent litigation attorney at Covington & Burling LLP, where he has practiced for decades and previously served as Managing Partner of the firm's Palo Alto office from 2008 to 2014. His practice focuses on high-stakes patent and trade secret disputes across diverse technology sectors, including telecommunications, electronics, semiconductors, software, and financial services. Young has significant experience with cases involving patents alleged to be essential under wireless communications and other standards, often addressing fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory (FRAND) licensing terms.

Young primarily defends operating companies in intellectual property disputes. His tracked cases at Covington & Burling have exclusively been on the defendant side, aligning with his background of representing companies such as SK Innovation, Samsung, Atmel, Texas Instruments, and Visa in federal district courts and the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC). He successfully defended a Chinese steel company in an ITC trade secret dispute and represented respondents in an ITC action concerning flash memory controllers.

Notable cases include leading the defense of Sonic Solutions against patent and trade secret claims, and representing Texas Instruments and Chips and Technologies in a patent infringement action initiated by Intel. Additionally, Young successfully argued the much-cited 2008 Federal Circuit case, O2 Micro v. Beyond Innovation, which established that judges must resolve case-deciding claim construction disputes rather than leaving them to a jury. While his practice heavily involves the ITC, specific regular appearances in Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) or Inter Partes Review (IPR) proceedings are not explicitly highlighted in his professional profiles.

Young earned his J.D., magna cum laude, from Harvard Law School in 1985 and holds an A.B./A.M. from Stanford University, where he was Phi Beta Kappa, in 1982. He was admitted to the California Bar in 1985.