Bernard Chao
Bernard Chao provides strategic intellectual property advice to established and early-stage companies. His practice includes validity and infringement investigations, related opinion work, patent portfolio analysis, appellate and district court litigation, and intellectual property licensing. In addition, Bernard regularly authors both academic and professional articles discussing recent developments in patent law.
Bernard has worked both as in-house counsel and at large law firms. As Vice President of Legal Strategy at Covad Communications (the first national DSL carrier), Bernard was responsible for a broad range of legal issues that arose as Covad grew from a small Silicon Valley startup to a public company with thousands of employees nationwide. Bernard's responsibilities included working with state public utilities commissions to develop new rules and regulations for competitive local exchange carriers. Bernard also managed a series of antitrust and commercial lawsuits against SBC that ended in a business agreement valued at over five hundred million dollars.
In private practice at the Silicon Valley offices of Wilson, Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati and Pennie & Edmonds, Bernard litigated patent cases and provided general intellectual property advice for clients involved with a wide range of technologies including flash memory, virtual machines, semiconductor manufacturing processes, modems, networking hardware, anti-virus software, printers, object oriented systems and software development tools.
Representative Experience at Chao Hadidi Stark & Barker- For the past two years, Bernard has been serving as a court appointed Special Master in the largest group of patent cases in the United States, In Re Katz Interactive Call Processing Patent Litigation (07-ml-01816, C.D. CA). This multi-district litigation involves approximately fifty different lawsuits, thirty patents and several hundred defendants. Bernard has advised the court on numerous substantive pretrial issues including motions to dismiss, summary judgment motions and Markman motions.
- Bernard has advised clients regarding the scope and validity of patents including preparation of formal opinions in the semiconductor, medical image processing, optics, networking, communications, computer security and e-commerce fields.
- Bernard has been retained by established law firms to serve as patent co-counsel in both district and appellate courts. He has represented clients in patent infringement and malpractice actions involving a wide range of computer, electronic and medical device technology.
- Bernard has worked with corporate counsel to perform IP due diligence in connection with corporate mergers and acquisitions, and the buying and selling of patents.
- Bernard has represented several different clients in patent license negotiations.
Professional Publications
Chao, "The Shifting Battleground: Focusing on Enablement”, Vol. 34, No. 2 New Matter (2009). 
Chao, "Obtaining Advice of Counsel After Seagate", Vol. 32, No. 4 New Matter (2007).
Chao, "Blending Law and Facts: A Recipe for Persuasive Briefs," Vol. 81 Illinois Bar Journal, p. 103 (Feb. 1993).
Presentations
Chao, Willfulness and Opinions, 5th Patent Strategies Conference, San Francisco, CA, March 26, 2008 (presented with Mikhail Lotvin).
Testimony on DSL Issues before the Kansas Corp. Comm., February 23, 2000.
Testimony on DSL Issues before the Missouri Public Service Comm., February 15, 2000.
The Evolution of the CLEC Industry, Texaltel's Annual Conference, Las Vegas, NV, April 6, 1999 (panel).
Collocation Upgrading for the New Millennium, ALTS Annual Conference, Austin, TX, December 4, 1998 (panel).
EducationBar Memberships
Bernard is admitted to practice in the state of California, the U.S. Patent Trademark Office, the Federal and Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and United States Supreme Court as well as several U.S. district courts throughout the country.