K&L Gates' Palo Alto office serves technology businesses, venture investors, and related enterprises in Silicon Valley.  Our Palo Alto attorneys are long-time Silicon Valley practitioners, intimately familiar with the special demands of working in one of the world's leading centers of innovation.  Collectively they cover the areas of intellectual property procurement and litigation, corporate and securities law for public and private companies, taxation, employment law, and complex commercial litigation.

Representative clients include publicly and privately held US computer, electronics, software, internet, semiconductor, and systems integration companies; biotechnology, pharmaceutical, medical device, and healthcare concerns; venture capital and private equity funds; foreign enterprises and investors relative to their operations and investments in Silicon Valley; and a host of more traditional businesses, ranging from real estate management firms to educational institutions.

Our IP and business attorneys in Palo Alto are deeply involved with companies and technologies in the "cleantech" and renewable energy fields.  "Green" companies are a mainstay of the practice in the office, with a special emphasis on solar technologies, solar energy enterprises, and project financing for solar facilities on a commercial scale.

Our intellectual property lawyers provide representation in IP disputes and advice on IP strategy, on procurement of patents, copyrights, and trademarks, as well as with respect to the protection of trade secrets.  They help clients to build patent and trademark portfolios tailored to business objectives, and to maximize the value of those portfolios through enforcement, licensing, and related programs.  Often working with corporate colleagues, these lawyers perform IP due diligence for investors, for emerging enterprises seeking funding, and for participants in M&A transactions.  Palo Alto patent prosecutors also support the IP litigation practice in the office and elsewhere by providing non-infringement and invalidity advice and opinions and by contributing their technical expertise to the handling of patent infringement and trade secret disputes.

Corporate lawyers in Palo Alto focus on business formations, equity, debt, and project financings, equity based compensation plans, mergers and acquisitions, and the commercialization of technology, both domestically and internationally, through licensing, distribution and sales arrangements, strategic alliances, and joint ventures.  We have an active practice representing venture capital and private equity funds, as well as corporate investors, again relative to interests and opportunities in the US and abroad.  Our corporate lawyers frequently assist and serve as principal outside counsel to start-up and emerging growth companies across a variety of industries.

The tax practice in the Palo Alto office addresses domestic and international tax planning for enterprises ranging in size from start-up companies to the largest publicly traded corporations in Silicon Valley.  We advise clients on tax issues arising from domestic and cross-border mergers, acquisitions, and reorganizations; on post-acquisition integration issues; on tax-efficient plans for the expansion or restructuring of existing operations; on inter-company pricing and related agreements; and on private equity fund formation and portfolio company optimization.  We also engage in advocacy in federal tax controversies at the audit and appellate levels.

Supporting and supplementing IP, IP litigation, and corporate presence in Palo Alto, our commercial litigation attorneys counsel clients with respect to potential claims and appear in courts throughout California and elsewhere relative to a broad range of business disputes, including controversies involving international transactions, and to defend employers in individual and class-action employment cases.  These litigators also assist clients with internal investigations involving securities, employment, and other sensitive matters.