Denis R. Salmon is a partner in the Palo Alto office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher and Co-Chair of the Firm's Intellectual Property Group.
For more than 25 years, Mr. Salmon has been lead counsel for technology companies in the Silicon Valley and throughout the United States in trials and appeals of key intellectual property cases. His patent and trade secret litigation experience includes a number of widely-reported cases for medical device and life sciences companies as well as cases covering a wide range of technologies including wireless communications, semiconductors, nanotechnology and software.
His notable victories on behalf of technology companies include the successful defense of a client in a case based on a portfolio of patents which had been widely-licensed in the medical device industry. This case has been the subject of nineteen published opinions and involved claims for more than $500 million in damages. Other examples of Mr. Salmon's successes include victories in the trial court and on appeal to the Federal Circuit in widely-cited cases that established patent exemptions for medical products and the defense of a trade secret case that led to a significant decision by the California Supreme Court.
Mr. Salmon is frequently invited to speak on intellectual property and high technology law topics for audiences ranging from law schools in the San Francisco Bay Area to the Federal Circuit Bar Association and the American Business Trial Lawyers Association. He has repeatedly been ranked and selected by numerous publications, including Chambers USA, and the Daily Journal as one of the top intellectual property litigators in California. In its most recent edition, The Legal 500 US named Mr. Salmon one of the leading intellectual property litigators in the United States.
Mr. Salmon has been co-chair of Gibson Dunn's firmwide Intellectual Property Practice Group since 1995. He formerly headed the Silicon Valley litigation practice of Brobeck Phleger & Harrison.
Educational History
J.D., magna cum laude, University of Minnesota Law School, 1976. B.A., magna cum laude, Hamline University, 1973.
Affiliations
American Intellectual Property Law Association; Federal Circuit Bar Association; American Bar Association, Litigation Section. Co-chair, Silicon Valley Campaign for Legal Services.