Fish & Richardson principal David Barkan has been named a "Technology Law Trailblazer" by The National Law Journal (NLJ). The annual list recognizes movers and shakers in the legal industry who have made an impact in their sector through new types of strategies or innovative court cases.
The NLJ highlighted Barkan's pioneering spirit with his early experience writing software for a startup before entering the legal field. "By the time I was in law school, the idea of merging law and technology was pretty appealing," he said.
Barkan, a litigation principal in Fish's Silicon Valley office, specializes in high technology litigation, spanning a broad range of computer and network technologies, including computer graphics, programming theory and language, networking protocols and security, semiconductor processing, analog and digital semiconductor devices, distributed systems and storage devices.
During his 27-year career, Barkan has represented both foreign companies enforcing their U.S. patents and U.S. companies protecting their inventions against foreign manufacturers. He has rebuilt early computer systems, created strategies to overcome evidentiary challenges and secured defense judgments for his clients in numerous district court and ITC actions.
This March, Barkan helped Fish celebrate the opening of its new office in Shenzhen, China, by moderating an onsite panel on cutting-edge technology law topics.
Barkan has been recognized as a Northern California Super Lawyer since 2004 and has been listed in The Best Lawyers in America© since 2013 for Litigation - Intellectual Property. Additionally, the Daily Journal named him as one of the "Top 100" most influential lawyers in California, as well as one of the "Top 75" intellectual property litigators in California.
Barkan received his J.D., order of the coif, from Berkeley School of Law in 1992 and his A.B. in government from Harvard University in 1987.