Steven C. Carlson

Steven C. Carlson is an intellectual property litigator who draws upon national and international experience to assist clients with a wide range of legal disputes, including patent, trade secret, trademark, and copyright disputes, as well as unfair competition and fiduciary duty matters.

Mr. Carlson is a first-chair courtroom litigator whose professional experience covers a wide range of technologies, including medical devices, chemistry, industrial processes, machine learning, genomics, telecommunications, and robotics. He practices in state and federal courts around the country, including at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board and the Federal Circuit.  

A thought leader and an educator, Mr. Carlson has written numerous articles and books on the topic of patent litigation. He is the co-author of “Patents in Germany and Europe: Procurement, Enforcement and Defense,” a handbook that provides attorneys the tools they need to enforce patents in the German market. He is also a co-author of “Patent Case Management Judicial Guide,” a publication of the Federal Judicial Center that is distributed as a resource to all U.S. federal judges. He teaches advanced patent litigation at UC Berkeley, focusing on litigation before the PTAB and the International Trade Commission.

Mr. Carlson earned his J.D. from Yale Law School and his B.A. in chemistry from Reed College. He previously served as a law clerk to the Hon. Paul. R. Michel in the U.S. Court of Appeals, Federal Circuit, and to the Hon. Roderick R. McKelvie in the U.S. District Court, District of Delaware.  

Prior to attending law school, Mr. Carlson volunteered with the United States Peace Corps, spending three years directing health and sanitation programs in remote Moroccan villages, speaking Berber and Arabic.  In 2026 he won Rotary International’s top award for individual service, stemming from his projects leading the construction of irrigation aqueducts in Morocco’s High Atlas Mountains.

In his spare time, he makes cheeses and charcuterie, and is reading the Homeric epics in Ancient Greek.

Education

• Yale Law School, J.D. (1999)
• Reed College, B.A. in Chemistry (1993)

Languages

Representative Matters

Representing Duesenfeld GmbH against Ascend Elements, in assertion of patents directed to battery recycling, successfully sustaining validity of claims in the PTAB, with district court proceedings ongoing.

Representing Global Industrial in trademark and trade dress litigation over the use of the color blue on industrial lift equipment; case ongoing.

Representing Global Industrial in trade dress, trade secret, and unfair competition litigation adverse to DK Gentile, relating to forklift collision avoidance systems; case ongoing.

Representing Global Industrial in trademark dispute, successfully winning $4M default judgment against Chinese manufacturer of infringing industrial shelving.

Representing Fizz Social in tortious interference litigation against rivals Yik Yak and Sidechat; case pending in NY state court.

Represented Fizz Social in trademark litigation against Instacart over the use of “Fizz” name; case successfully resolved.

Representing startup founders against trade secret allegations asserted by former employer, Chaos Industries, relating to military drone technology; case ongoing.

Representing Cherokee Chemical and Zeco LLC adverse to Rochester Midland Corp. in trade secret disputes concerning employee mobility; case ongoing.

Represented Applied Science against Uneklo USA, successfully asserting patent relating to blood collection technology.

Represented Topcon Medical Systems in defense of patent and trade secret allegations concerning medical devices for glaucoma diagnosis, winning dismissal of patent claims, and arguing and winning argument on trade secret claims at Federal Circuit; case successfully resolved.

Representing Expensify, an expense report software provider, in patent and trademark suits against multiple competitors, as well as winning arbitration award of breach of contract and fraud.

Represented June Life, a developer of artificial intelligence ovens, in a patent litigation, a trade secret litigation, and corporate diligence matters.

Represented InDxLogic, Inc. in asserting trade secret misappropriation claims against former customer of medical record indexing software. 

Represented Sphero in offensive and defensive patent disputes regarding robotic toy technology. (Prior to joining Robins Kaplan LLP)

Represented iVenture Card Asia in successfully arguing and winning trial at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board to invalidate patents held by Smart Destinations concerning database technology used in the travel industry.  (Prior to joining Robins Kaplan LLP)

Represented smart teddy bear inventors Carly Gloge and Isaac Squires in Delaware Chancery Court in a dispute seeking to unwind their company’s acquisition amid claims of fraud and inducement. The case was settled with transfer of assets. (Prior to joining Robins Kaplan LLP)

Represented database service provider mLab in domain name and trademark litigation against MongoDB.  (Prior to joining Robins Kaplan LLP)

Represented a leading computing company in cybersecurity proceedings against rogue IT employee.  (Prior to joining Robins Kaplan LLP)

Represented Applied Biosystems in U.S. and Germany assertion of realtime PCR instrument patents, winning worldwide license. (Prior to joining Robins Kaplan LLP)

Represented Allergan Inc. at trial and on appeal. Resulted in the successful enforcement of patents relating to glaucoma therapy. (Prior to joining Robins Kaplan LLP)

• Listed in The Best Lawyers in America (2019-2027 editions)
• Named a “Northern California Super Lawyer,” Super Lawyers (2016-2026)
• Listed in IAM 1000: The World's Leading Patent Practitioners (2018)
• Named a “Northern California Rising Star,” Super Lawyers (2009-2011)

Civic

• Rotary International, Board Member and Incoming President of the Rotary Club of San Carlos

Professional

• Federal Judicial Center
• UC Berkeley School of Law, Lecturer
• Bay Area IP Inn of Court

Speeches

• Trends in Patent Enforcement
  26th Annual Berkeley-Stanford Advanced Patent Law Institute, Stanford, California (December 4, 2025)
  
• Update and Statistics on the UPC: Who is using it and what is happening?
  UC Berkeley Law’s Unified Patent Court Institute Conference, Washington, DC (November 20, 2025)
• Litigation Stats and Strategy Part Two: Key Jurisdictions Outside the US
  12th Annual IP Dealmakers Forum, Austin, Texas (November 6, 2025)
• Cross-Border Litigation Strategies Using Europe’s Unified Patent Court
  Certified Patent Valuation Analyst’s Maximizing Returns on Patent Enforcement Summit, Webinar (May 28, 2025)
  
• Perspectives from the U.S.
  The Unified Patent Court's First Year: Perspectives and Strategies from Europe and the US (October 23, 2024)
• Let the UPC Games Begin: Jurisdictional Shenanigans or Innocent Growing Pain?
  Berkeley Law, Webinar (February 20, 2024)
• Developments in the Unified Patent Court: Seizure Actions
  Berkeley Law, Webinar (February 6, 2024)
• The Future of Patent Enforcement: UPC vs. US Courts
  24th Annual Berkeley-Stanford Advanced Patent Law Institute, Stanford, CA (December 7-8, 2023)
• Data Permission: Do You Have the Rights to the AI Training Data?
  IPWatchdog Artificial Intelligence Masters™ 2023, Ashburn, Virginia (March 7, 2023)
• Hot Topics in Patent Law
  PLI Intellectual Property Law Institute, New York, New York (September 15, 2022)
• Interplay of District Courts and the PTAB: Navigating an Uncertain Path
  22nd Annual Berkeley-Stanford Advanced Patent Law Institute, San Jose, California (December 9, 2021)
• AI Patents: Enforceability Strategy
  18th International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Law (ICAIL 2021): AI & Patents Workshop (June 25, 2021)
• No Rewind Button: Legal Pitfalls in Machine Learning Systems
  Moderator, Second Annual AI Legal Summit, Webinar (May 5, 2021)
• Landslide: IP Legal Pitfalls of Machine Learning Systems
  American Bar Association Section of Intellectual Property Law, Webinar (September 22, 2020)
• Insulating Your AI System from IP Claims and Guarding its Value
  Nordic Innovation House Silicon Valley, Palo Alto, California (January 8, 2020)
• Willfulness and Waiver of Privilege
  20th Annual Berkeley-Stanford Advanced Patent Law Institute: Silicon Valley, East Palo Alto, California (December 13, 2019) 
• Using IPRs to Challenge and Defend Patents: Standing, Serial IPRs, Unintended Consequences
  Strafford Webinar (December 12, 2019)
• Insulating your AI system from IP claims and guarding its value
  AI Legal Summit: Solutions for Averting IP and Privacy Litigation in the Age of Artificial Intelligence, San Carlos, California (May 9, 2019)
• IP Enforcement Protection 101
  The Foundry Group presentation (March 6, 2019)
• Trade Secrets Positioning and Damages
  Bay Area In House Med-Tech Association, Mountain View, California (February 27, 2019)
• Enforcing Patents Global Strategy
  Webinar, IPO IP Chat Channel (December 13, 2018)
• Updates on Obviousness In District Court and at the PTO
  2018 Advanced Patent Law Institute, Palo Alto, California (December 6, 2018)

Media Mentions

• "Patent Litigation Trends To Watch In 2026," Law360 (January 2, 2026)
• "Plan for Value-Based US Patent Fee Changes Draws Pushback, Praise," MLex (July 30, 2025)
• "Steve Carlson, Partner at Robins Kaplan," Hsu Untied (November 18, 2022)
• "How to protect trade secrets for emerging tech," Managing IP (July 26, 2022)
• "Machine Learning Models and the Legal Need for Editability: Surveying the Pitfalls (Part II)," IPWatchdog (December 15, 2021)
• "Machine Learning Models: The Legal Need for Editability (Part I)," IPWatchdog (December 8, 2021)
• "Earl of Sandwiches," The Rotarian (February 2020) 
• "Serial and Duplicative Petitions at PTAB by Apple, Other Tech Giants Flout Congressional Intent," IPWatchdog (November 8, 2018)
• “The USPTO Must End Repeated and Concerted Patent Attacks,” IPWatchdog (October 30, 2018)
• “Duplicative IPR Findings,” PatentlyO (October 29, 2018)