Alston & Bird has strengthened its patent prosecution capabilities with the addition of Ardeshir Tabibi as partner in the firm’s Silicon Valley office.

“Ardeshir is a distinguished lawyer with deep technical expertise and a wealth of experience assisting clients in expanding and capturing the real value of their patent portfolios,” said Jason Cooper, Alston & Bird partner and co-head of its Intellectual Property Practice. “He knows what it takes to strategically build and leverage a patent portfolio, in the United States and around the world, and will be a tremendous asset to clients in helping them develop and execute patent strategies that align with their business objectives and reflect a clear understanding of market opportunities and threats.”

Tabibi focuses his practice on patent portfolio development and strategic counseling in the electronic and software arts. He has extensive experience prosecuting foreign and domestic patents in a variety of technology fields, including wireless communication, networking, microprocessors, analog and digital integrated circuits, semiconductor memories, computer architecture and semiconductor devices and processing.

“Bringing Ardeshir on board is part of our ongoing and strategic expansion in key areas of our IP practice,” said Guy Gosnell, Alston & Bird partner and head of its Patent Prosecution, Counseling & Review Practice. “Not only does Ardeshir bring additional patent prosecution capabilities to the firm, but he also further extends our reach to handle the most technically challenging, complex electrical engineering and computer science patent matters for some of the world’s most prestigious companies.”

Tabibi has assisted numerous large electronics manufacturers and start-up companies in developing their patent strategies, as well as in analyzing and investigating patents in a variety of contexts, including drafting infringement/validity opinions, reexamination and reissue proceedings and freedom-to-operate studies. He has also been involved in patent cross-licensing negotiations and patent portfolio analysis in connection with venture capital investments and corporate acquisitions.

“We are delighted that Ardeshir is joining our team,” said Ted Hollifield, partner-in-charge of Alston & Bird’s Silicon Valley office. “His skills are a strong complement to the deep bench of lawyers and other professionals we now have doing patent prosecution in Silicon Valley, especially in our Biotechnology, Chemical & Pharmaceutical Practice. He brings great talent and is a natural fit for our firm.”

Prior to joining Alston & Bird, Tabibi was a partner at Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton LLP, which he joined in 2000.

In addition to his legal background, Tabibi has significant technology industry experience. He has worked at a number of leading Silicon Valley companies as a staff circuit design engineer responsible for designing mixed-signal application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs), super I/O integrated circuits, telecommunication circuits and flash memories. He also helped devise mathematical models for non-volatile memory cells and techniques for statistical design of VLSI circuits in collaboration with Stanford University.

Tabibi is the latest addition to Alston & Bird’s Intellectual Property Practice. In April, the firm added David Stein as an IP litigation partner in its Los Angeles office.

www.alston.com