Mr. Katz, who heads the litigation group in the Palo Alto office, specializes in complex commercial dispute resolution with an emphasis on intellectual property, antitrust and technology matters.  During his career, he has been involved in high-profile and novel cases for major clients both internationally and in Northern California.    For example, Mr. Katz recently defeated a motion for a temporary restraining order in case involving high-profile business colleagues [Click here to read article], recently won a jury verdict of almost a million dollars from Caltrans [Click here to read article], and won a jury verdict of $28,100,000 on behalf of a class of 2062 retired National Football League players against their union [Click here to read article].

Aside from private practice, Mr. Katz’s experience includes the position of Deputy Director of the Law of the Sea Negotiations at the U.S. State Department, as well as the position of attorney at the Foreign Commerce Section of the U.S. Justice Department’s Antitrust Division, where he was recipient of the Attorney General’s Outstanding Performance Award.  In addition, he was an Overseas Fellow of the International Legal Center in Bandung, Indonesia, where he assisted the Minister of Justice on law reform projects.  Mr. Katz currently teaches a course in trial advocacy at Stanford University Law School and a course in sports law at Santa Clara University Law School. 

Representative Recent Litigation

In 2010 Mr. Katz defeated an application for a temporary restraining order that would have prevented his CEO client from terminating a co-owner as CFO.

In 2009 Mr. Katz was won a jury verdict of almost $1,000,000 for a multi-billion dollar operator of truck  stops against Caltrans in a case about an aborted land deal.

In 2007 Mr. Katz won an anti-SLAPP motion for a venture capital client, which stopped his adversary’s case at the outset and provided for attorneys’ fees for Mr. Katz’s client.

Mr. Katz won a jury verdict in 2006 in a patent infringement case in Marshall, Texas, involving remote email as reported in the Wall Street Journal on May 4, 2006 on page B4.

Mr. Katz obtained an injunction in 2006 in the Federal Court in the Southern District of New York against a company seeking to circumvent a device protecting electronically stored data.

Mr. Katz won a jury verdict in 2006 in the Federal Court in the Northern District of California in a contract/copyright infringement case involving two electronic search companies.

Mr. Katz obtained an injunction in 2004 in the Federal Court in the Southern District of New York preventing the company formerly known as 321 Studios from selling DVDXCopy software.