North America - United States • Intellectual property

Kirkland & Ellis LLP

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The team at Kirkland & Ellis LLP remains a market leader, advising multinational corporates across such tech, video games, aerospace, publishing and media sectors, including Epic Games, IBM, and Take-Two Interactive. Intellectual property authority Dale Cendali, who represented Oracle in the Supreme Court and throughout the long-running Google v Oracle case, heads the practice, bringing extensive experience to high-stakes infringement matters on behalf of celebrities, major motion picture studios and corporates in tech. Seasoned litigator Claudia Ray handles complex combined copyright and competition law matters in New York. Joshua Simmons supports Cendali in acting for clients across the tech and medical devices spaces. All lawyers mentioned work in the New York office. Miranda Means, who works at the firm’s Boston location, was promoted to partner in October 2023.

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Key clients

  • Alcon Vision LLC
  • Astronics Corp.
  • Deloitte Consulting LLP
  • Epic Games, Inc.
  • IBM Corporation
  • Take-Two Interactive Software Inc.
  • Thomson Reuters Enterprise Centre GmbH

Lawyers

Hall of Fame

The lawyers at the very top of the profession, widely known and respected by peers and clients for their longstanding involvement in market-leading work.

Dale Cendali

Hall of fameKirkland & Ellis LLP

Dale Cendali is the internationally renowned head of Kirkland’s Copyright, Trademark and Internet Practice. Law360 named her an “Icon of IP” and an “MVP,” and the NLJ selected her as one of the “100 Most Influential Lawyers in America.” Dale has been named “Litigator of the Week” by AmLaw, and a “Power Lawyer” by The Hollywood Reporter. Dale routinely wins cases at the district court level on motions to dismiss, summary judgment and at trial. She is also an appellate lawyer, frequently arguing before US Courts of Appeal as well as the United States Supreme Court. Chambers routinely names Dale a top-tier lawyer and refers to her as a “phenomenal” and “power-house” lawyer with “on-point commercial and practical advice”. Among many bar appointments, she has served as Counsel to the Board of the International Trademark Association and on the Council of the ABA’s IPL Section. Dale is an Adviser for the ALI’s Restatement of the Law, Copyright project and helped draft the federal Trademark Dilution Revision Act. A prolific writer, Dale is co-editor of the ABA’s treatise, Copyright Litigation Strategies. She is a graduate of Yale College and Harvard Law School, and is an adjunct at HLS, teaching copyright litigation.

Leading lawyers

Joshua Simmons

Joshua Simmons

Kirkland & Ellis LLP

Joshua Simmons focuses his practice on appellate and trial court litigation, intellectual property counseling and strategic portfolio management, as well as regulatory and legislative policy. He litigates copyright, patent, right of publicity, trademark, trade secret, and unfair competition cases—particularly complex cases and those of first impression—along with contract, licensing, and domain name disputes. He also advises on IP matters that intersect with antitrust, fraud, false advertising, privacy, and social media. As a media- and technology-savvy attorney, Josh is lauded for both media and entertainment, as well as software and technology representations. His eye-catching litigations involve a range of media (film, news, publishing, sports, television, theatre, and video games) and technologies (artificial intelligence, computer software and services, circuitry and semiconductors, Internet-based systems, medical devices, and telecommunications). For example, he represented Fox’s Modern Family; Fox News’ telecasts; Take-Two’s, Epic Games’, and Tetris’ video games; Damien Hirst’s art; the publishing industry’s books; the Anastasia and Spider-Man Broadway musicals; and Schumacher’s designs. He also represented Cisco’s operating system, IBM’s workload-management platform, GoodRx’s eCommerce website, Motorola’s radios, Oracle’s Java platform and Solaris operating system, Samsung’s smartphones, Sharp’s chat engagement, and TriZetto’s healthcare software.

Practice head

The lawyer(s) leading their teams.

Dale Cendali

Other key lawyers

Joshua Simmons