Michael W. De Vries

Michael W. De Vries specializes in high-stakes competitor cases. Over the past two years, he’s secured more than $2 billion in verdicts and settlements representing clients like Motorola Inc., TriZetto Corp., LivePerson, Inc., EagleView Technologies and Apcon Inc. in trials throughout the U.S., often working in tandem with long-time law partner Adam R. Alper and other Kirkland & Ellis LLP colleagues.

In late March 2022, he and Alper scored a $40 million jury verdict in federal court in San Jose for client Comet Technologies on claims that a rival poached employees and misappropriated trade secrets related to advanced semiconductor manufacturing. Comet Technologies USA Inc. et al., v. XP Power LLC, 5:20-cv- 06408 (N.D. Cal., filed Sept. 11, 2020).

“Everything’s going very well,” De Vries said. “This makes it six jury wins in 26 months, including four trials since the pandemic began.”

The jury in the Comet trial, having found the defendant acted with willful and malicious intent, added $20 million in punitive damages to $20 million in compensatory damages. “This was among the more complicated technology we’ve been involved with,” De Vries said. Comet produces semiconductor chips by using high radio frequencies to turn gas into plasma ions. “Those etch silicon wafers at almost the atomic level,” he added.

De Vries’ client contended that former Comet employees schemed to steal thousands of confidential files as they left the company to go to XP Power.

Despite the advanced and intricate technology involved, De Vries successfully got his arguments across to a knowledgeable San Jose jury. “Our jury was very well-educated,” he said. “We had a Ph.D. mathematician and multiple Silicon Valley engineers. We supplied the jury with specialized software that allowed them to look at the code behind the patent.”

Among his wins last year, in April 2021 De Vries and the Kirkland team served as lead defense counsel for Apcon Inc. in a six-patent network technologies showdown filed by rival Gigamon Inc. “Gigamon is a market leader in network intrusion protection technology,” De Vires said. “Without warning, they launched a litigation offensive against our client.” A Texas jury returned a complete victory for Apcon, ruling that there was no infringement of any of the patents and invalidating each of the asserted patent claims. Gigamon Inc. v. Apcon Inc., 2:19- cv-00300 (E. D. Texas, filed Aug. 30, 2019).

Notably, De Vries’ team sought no delay as the case approached trial—even though Apcon was facing sizable damages and an injunction that could have shut down the company. “We felt confident in our case and we were motivated to push it to a win,” De Vries said.

– John Roemer