Ronald Katz, who heads the litigation group in the Palo Alto office, specializes in complex commercial dispute resolution, with an emphasis on intellectual property, antitrust and technology matters. Mr. Katz has been involved in high-profile and novel cases for major clients, both internationally and in Northern California. In 2013 he defeated a TRO application by a major cycling team against a sporting goods manufacturer client. In 2012, he helped the San Francisco SPCA achieve a significant settlement in a will contest. In 2011 and again in 2012, he argued a trademark appeal before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on behalf of football great Jim Brown [Click here to read article]. And in 2010 he defeated a motion for a temporary restraining order in an intra-corporate dispute between two top-level executives [Click here to read article]. Other recent courtroom successes include winning a jury verdict of almost a million dollars from Caltrans [Click here to read article], winning a jury verdict in a patent infringement action involving remote email technology, obtaining a preliminary injunction against infringement of a patent relating to the protection of electronically stored data, and winning a jury verdict of $28.1 million on behalf of a class of retired National Football League players against their union [Click here to read article].

Prior to entering private practice, Mr. Katz served as Deputy Director of the Law of the Sea Negotiations at the U.S. State Department and previous to that was an attorney in the Foreign Commerce Section of the U.S. Justice Department’s Antitrust Division, where he had the honor of receiving the Attorney General’s Outstanding Performance Award. In addition, he was an Overseas Fellow with the International Legal Center in Bandung, Indonesia, where he assisted the Minister of Justice on law reform projects. Mr. Katz currently teaches a course in trial advocacy at Stanford University Law School and a course in sports law at Santa Clara University Law School. He is the Chairman of the Board of the Institute of Sports Law and Ethics at Santa Clara University. Mr. Katz established the Torch Fellowships for graduate students at New York University, where he was previously a member of the Board of Overseers.

Representative Recent Litigation

In 2013, Mr. Katz defeated the application for a Temporary Restraining Order by a well-known cycling team against a sporting goods manufacturing client. The client was therefore able to provide a certain helmet to other teams than the one that had brought suit.