Gibson Dunn Launches Cross-Disciplinary Robotics Industry Group
Firm News | September 2, 2026
Gibson Dunn today announced the launch of its Robotics Industry Group. The cross-disciplinary group brings together more than 30 partners around the world, combining deep technical expertise and experience advising leading AI, technology, and advanced-computing companies across regulatory counseling, litigation, and corporate transactions with the firm’s elite intellectual property capabilities. The group advises companies developing and deploying robotic and autonomous systems, as well as investors in the sector.
“Robotics is drawing extraordinary levels of investment and talent, and it is becoming an increasingly consequential industry for our clients,” said Vivek Mohan, a leader of Gibson Dunn’s Robotics Industry Group and Co-Chair of the firm’s Artificial Intelligence Practice Group. “We have advised companies across the robotics ecosystem for years, and we see tremendous opportunity ahead as the industry continues to grow and evolve. The launch of this group reflects both the importance of the sector to our clients and the firm’s commitment to being at the forefront of it.”
Gibson Dunn advises across the sector, from industrial and humanoid robots to autonomous vehicles, drones, medical robotics, and space systems. The firm won an ITC case for SharkNinja in a three-year patent battle with iRobot over robotic vacuums and defended the first FTC inspection of an algorithmic system, which closed after a two-year investigation with no enforcement action. Lawyers in the group represent companies in trade secrets litigation involving humanoid robotics, counsel frontier AI labs on model development and deployment in physical systems, advise a Middle East government on a regulatory framework for autonomous vehicles, and advise on a joint venture for one of the world’s largest announced deployments of construction automation.
“In the robotics space, intellectual property disputes can have an outsized impact on a company’s competitive position,” said Brian Rosenthal, a leader of the Robotics Industry Group and a partner in the firm’s Intellectual Property Practice Group. “Trade secret and patent fights over sensing, actuation, and control systems can run in multiple jurisdictions such as district courts, the ITC and the PTAB, often in parallel. Robotics clients need lawyers who can litigate effectively across multiple jurisdictions on complex technology.”
“Robotics is inherently interdisciplinary,” said Frances Waldmann, a leader of the Robotics Industry Group and a partner in the firm’s Artificial Intelligence Practice Group. “As AI is integrated into systems that perceive, reason, adapt, and act in the physical world, companies developing and deploying them face corporate, regulatory, intellectual property, privacy, product liability, employment, and national security questions at the same time. The group gives clients a way to draw on our combined expertise in this space.”
“Our team supports clients from the moment they enter the space—as an investor, developer, or deployer—throughout their lifecycle, and we are seeing a significant uptick in interest in the area,” said Rob Little, Co-Chair of the firm’s Mergers & Acquisitions Practice Group. Gibson Dunn represented Crestview Advisors in the formation of its industrial automation integrator and robotics portfolio company, Convergix Automation Solutions, and related M&A transactions, and has represented Convergix in subsequent matters.