Kevin Greenleaf

Kevin Greenleaf is Counsel at Dentons, based in Washington, DC and Silicon Valley. He is a computer engineer with several years of experience in-house and as a senior component design engineer at one of the world's largest semiconductor manufacturers. His practice focuses on Patent Law.

Kevin has nearly two decades of experience in USPTO post-grant proceedings and currently leads Dentons' post-grant team. He has handled hundreds of post-grant proceedings at the USPTO, including reexams, interferences, reissues, IPRs and PGRs. He also counsels clients on patent prosecution, litigation and transactions.

He uses his strong technical background to advise small and large companies on portfolio management, technical analysis and strategic counselling, with an emphasis on computer architecture, e-commerce, data communication networks, software, circuit design, semiconductors and microelectronic fabrication. His broad experience in patent law influences his advice from filing an application to defending or challenging issued patents.

His experience includes representing plaintiff in successfully achieving a confidential licensing settlement and winning an IPR (Polaris v. Samsung, 2:17-CV-00715 and IPR2018-01262); representation of petitioner in multiple IPR proceedings involving solar-powered LED lights, where final written decisions cancelled all instituted claims (Jiawei Technology USA, Ltd. v. Richmond, IPR2014-00938, IPR2014-00936 and IPR2014-00935); representing Ford Motor Company in 27 inter partes review petitions against a patent owner asserting several hundred claims; and successfully defending a patent owned by Adobe Systems Inc. in an early denial of an inter partes review petition, which the Patent Trial and Appeal Board cited in its nationwide roundtables.

Kevin is frequently cited as a leader in the patent industry. Intellectual Asset Management identified Kevin among its "World's Leading Patent Professionals" from 2015 to present, and he has been recommended in IAM Patent 1000 for California and National Intellectual Property. He was ranked among the top 10 in Best Performing Attorneys representing Petitioners or Patent Owners in the Patexia IPR Intelligence Report, 2018–2019, and recognised in Northern California Super Lawyers, Rising Star (Intellectual Property), 2015–2018.

He has held various senior leadership roles in professional associations, including patent-focused committees at the Intellectual Property Owners Association (IPO) and the American Bar Association's Section of Intellectual Property Law (ABA-IPL), and has helped influence policy and rulemaking at the USPTO. He writes and lectures frequently on patent and intellectual property law, including lecturing on strategic counselling at Georgetown University.

He holds a JD from McGeorge School of Law, University of the Pacific, and a BS in Computer Engineering from the University of Illinois at Chicago. He lives on a small family farm, where he enjoys cycling on hundreds of miles of gravel roads.