​David H. Kennedy, a partner in the Palo Alto office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, is a member of the Corporate Department focusing on transactions relating to the development, acquisition, licensing and commercial exploitation of life sciences, software, semiconductor chip and other technologies and the licensing and commercial exploitation of digital media, entertainment content, trademarks and publicity rights.  Mr. Kennedy has substantial experience with the negotiation of collaboration and license agreements involving life sciences companies and with OEM, distribution, cloud computing, escrow and end-user license agreements relating to computer software.  A significant component of Mr. Kennedy’s intellectual property transactions practice includes patent licensing and the acquisition or disposition of patent portfolios.   Mr. Kennedy regularly assists with intellectual property issues arising out of M&A transactions and joint ventures and has extensive experience involving a wide range of commercial transactions, including financing, distribution, supply, manufacturing, and services agreements, and with preserving intellectual property rights in a bankruptcy context.  Mr. Kennedy, who started with the firm in its Los Angeles office in 1982, for a period of time served as general counsel of a public company engaged in the business of licensing biodegradable materials technology.

Mr. Kennedy has lectured at a number of programs and seminars regarding intellectual property and various other legal issues, including programs sponsored by the Practicing Law Institute, the Continuing Education Section of the California State Bar, the University of Southern California Law Center, the American Conference Institute, the Rocky Mountain Intellectual Property and Technology Institute, Glasser LegalWorks Seminars, Law Seminars International, Stanford Law School and the Silicon Valley Association of General Counsel.  He is a member of the Science and Technology Section, the Business Law Section and the Intellectual Property Section of the American Bar Association and the Intellectual Property Law and Business Law Section of the California State Bar Association.

Mr. Kennedy has contributed chapters or articles regarding intellectual property issues to a number of treatises, including Intellectual Property in Business Transactions, S L. Weakley, ed. (2008); Partnerships, Joint Ventures & Strategic Alliances, S. Glover and C. Wasserman, eds. (2007) and Intellectual Property in Business Organizations: Cases and Materials, Richard S. Gruner, Shubha Ghosh, Jay P. Kesan (2006).

Mr. Kennedy graduated in 1982 from the University of Wisconsin Law School, where he served as Note and Comment Editor for the Wisconsin Law Review and was elected a member of the Order of the Coif. He earned a Master of Business Administration degree, with a major in finance, in 1981 from the University of Wisconsin Graduate School of Business.