Michael J. Bettinger, 51

Intellectual property litigation

Bettinger, who heads up his firm's intellectual property litigation practice, tried four cases last year, including three patent trials before the International Trade Commission. Last December, in the Northern District of California, he beat back a trademark infringement case brought by San Francisco-based Levi Strauss & Co. against client Ohio-based Abercrombie & Fitch Co. involving the stitching on jeans. In October 2008, he won a noninfringement decision at the ITC for Taiwan-based Acer Inc. and others sued by Milpitas-based SanDisk Corp, and in July of last year he won a noninfringement decision before the commission for Sunnyvale-based Spansion Inc. and AMD against San Jose-based Tessera Technologies Inc. That case is on appeal at the Federal Circuit.