Robert McFarlane

Bio

Professor McFarlane is the co-chair of Hanson Bridgett LLP’s Intellectual Property Practice Group and the chair of the firm’s Technology Practice.  He is a registered patent attorney whose litigation practice focuses on patent infringement matters, intellectual property disputes, and technology-related commercial disputes and he also provides his clients with counseling on a wide range of intellectual property matters.  He has argued cases before the Federal Circuit and the California Courts of Appeals, represents his clients in courts throughout the United States (including such active patent litigation jurisdictions as the Eastern District of Texas, the Eastern District of Virginia, the Northern District of Illinois, the District of Delaware, and the Northern and Central Districts of California), and has been retained as an expert witness on U.S. patent law in a matter pending in London before the High Court of England and Wales.  He is also experienced in inter partes reviews before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) within the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) with patent infringement matters filed in the International Trade Commission (ITC).  Prior to joining Hanson Bridgett in 2011, Prof. McFarlane spent the majority of his career at the IP specialty firm Townsend and Townsend and Crew LLP (now Kilpatrick Townsend and Stockton LLP).

Prof. McFarlane has successfully represented his clients in patent infringement matters involving a wide range of technologies including solar mounting technology, laser processing, medical imaging, semiconductor fabrication processes, semiconductor power technologies, digital signal processing, microprocessor design, software, computer hardware, FLASH and DRAM devices, business methods and financial transactions, the internet, optics and optoelectronics, circuits, textile chemistry, oil exploration, optical character recognition, agricultural and manufacturing equipment, transportation and consumer products.

Between 2008 and 2016, Prof. McFarlane taught patent law and patent litigation as an adjunct professor at Golden Gate University School of Law.  He has also been a guest lecturer in intellectual property at the University of San Francisco School of Law and has been an instructor of copyright law in the LLM program offered jointly by Santa Clara University and Korea’s Seoul National University.  He received his engineering degree from Stanford University in 1990 and his J.D. from the Hastings College of the Law in 1994.

Education

• UC Law SF College of the Law
  J.D.