David Tsai

David Tsai is Pillsbury’s Taiwan practice co-leader and also resident in the San Francisco office. David is a first-chair trial lawyer and focuses his practice on intellectual property, patent, trade secret, trademark, copyright, complex breach of contract and product defect litigation in courts and international arbitration tribunals.

David represents world-class corporations innovating biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, medical devices, software (AI, internet and mobile apps) and hardware (semiconductors, set-top boxes, smartphones, solar wafers and light-emitting diodes/LED/OLED). In addition to litigation, his experience includes preparing and prosecuting U.S. electrical engineering patent applications, drafting patentability, freedom-to-operate and non-infringement opinions, as well as inter partes review (IPR) petitions. He advises his clients in patent negotiations, licensing, M&A transactions and overall intellectual property strategy. David has been quoted in various business and technology publications, including The New York Times, and has written and lectured internationally on Hatch-Waxman/Abbreviated New Drug Application (ANDA) litigation, standard essential patents, FRAND/RAND royalties, internet software applications and U.S. patent law.

In 2017 − 2019, he served as one of the 18 lawyer representatives to the United States District Court, Northern District of California. He has also served on the Executive Committee of the Board of Trustees for the University of California, Riverside (UCR), Foundation and currently serves on the Advisory Board of Santa Clara University School of Law. He is the immediate past president of the Harvard Club of San Francisco and a past president of the Silicon Valley IP Law Association (SVIPLA) and the Asian American Bar Association of the Greater Bay Area (AABA). In 2016, David was recognized by the California State Legislature for his work in civil rights.

Prior to his legal career, David worked in product management at a biotech company and internet/software startups backed by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and the Mayfield Fund. During his graduate studies at Stanford University focusing on stem cell gene therapy, David co-led the development of Stanford’s first online problem sets.

David is an adjunct professor at the University of San Francisco School of Law.