I. Neel Chatterjee

With trade secrets clients like Anthony Levandowski of self-driving car fame and the Indian Institute of Technology in a long-running dispute over handheld device apps, Chatterjee has established himself as an internationally-recognized IP and general commercial litigator at Goodwin Procter’s Silicon Valley offices.

“Trade secrets litigation has expanded and is increasingly a feature of commercial disputes that go well beyond employee mobility issues,” he said.

The Levandowski case moved well beyond the former Google Inc. star engineer’s decision to move to Uber Technologies Inc. into a battle over autonomous vehicle trade secrets and an indemnity dispute. The IIT case involved claims of a joint venture gone wrong.

“A lot of companies are engaged in build-or-buy decisions over whether to develop their own new technologies or to look at external vendors. A company talks to a potential partner, everyone feels optimistic, and then the decision goes the other way and the company decides to build it themselves. And the people who didn’t get the deal end up pissed off. We’re seeing a lot more of these disputes, along with quarrels related to licensing deals. Unlike with patents, the scope of authorized use can be highly disputable.”

In one such case, Chatterjee and his team represent Purple Innovation LLC, a maker of premium mattresses and pillows using an advanced gel matrix technology. Purple asserts that a licensee has manufactured and sold unauthorized infringing products for a third party brand using trade secrets related to its gel matrix patents. Purple Innovation LLC v. Advanced Comfort Technology Inc. dba Intellibed, 2:20-cv-00811 (D. Utah, filed Nov. 19, 2020).

“These are products derived from the beds used in spaceships,” Chatterjee said. “The case has a complicated licensing history, but basically a business partner is now making a cut-rate lower quality version that is thousands of dollars less in costs.” The defendant’s motion to dismiss is pending.

Chatterjee also conducts several pro bono matters, including one that involves a police department’s effort to keep secret its body cam footage showing how officers treat the homeless. Chatterjee represents a civil rights group suing to obtain the material under the California Public Records Act. Law Foundation of Silicon Valley v. City of Gilroy, 20CV362347 (S. Clara Co. Super. Ct., filed Jan. 22, 2020).

After almost two years of litigation, Chatterjee and colleagues persuaded a trial judge that the city violated the act, that the footage is a public record and that the Law Foundation is entitled to fees and costs.

“The case is about secrets, exceptions to the duty to provide information to the public and accountability for the police,” Chatterjee said. “The judge went deep to decide this case, and we are getting amazing footage of how the police behave.”

—John Roemer