Timothy B. Yoo

Yoo represents clients in a wide range of industries dealing with many intellectual property and technology-related issues. His clients also span the Pacific, from Korea and Taiwan to Pasadena and Hollywood.

“The common thread among them is that they are tech related in some way,” he said.

For instance, he represents a CalTech professor who has created an autonomous walking robot that can ride a skateboard or walk a tightrope on its own. Yoo is handling a patent issue and also advises the professor on his other robotics research, including the development of an autonomous flying ambulance.

“It’s really cool working with truly some of the most brilliant people on earth,” Yoo said.

A different client is a very large electronics manufacturer in Asia. He recently completed a multiday arbitration for it against a competitor over the development and manufacturing of an important new device. He cannot name the company, nor the other large electronics company he represents.

Nor can he name the two major subscription streaming services he is defending in a patent dispute with a Korean company over an aspect of streaming technology.

There are other media clients that he can name: Kanye West and the world’s most popular K-pop band, BTS.

He is advising West’s company Yeezy LLC on all aspects of its IP portfolio, including trademarks, copyrights and design and utility patents.

Yoo has met West, who has changed his name to Ye, once. “He is very smart, and he cares a lot about IP.… He realizes the value of intellectual property and recognizes that it’s something that needs to be protected.”

Yoo is representing BTS’s record label, Hybe Corp., in a copyright lawsuit against a separate company, CJ E&M, involving a television series on which the band appeared briefly. Yoo has already gotten BTS dismissed from the lawsuit. Kahn v. CJ E and M America Inc., 2:21-cv- 03230 (C.D. Cal., filed April 4, 2021).

CJ E&M is a large entertainment and media company in Korea, and Yoo worked in its legal department for two years before joining Bird Marella. He oversaw all the company’s litigation outside Korea.

“That’s really where I started getting the broad exposure to different types of intellectual property and technology.” Before joining the company in 2013, he had primarily worked on patent matters at a pair of large law firms in Los Angeles.

Besides his tech and media clients, he also works with a client in the product-diversion industry. The client generally purchases large quantities of a company’s consumer goods and then sells them on to retailers. Yoo handles brand protection issues brought by the companies that produce the goods.

– Don DeBenedictis