David St. John-Larkin
- Denver Office Managing Partner; Co-Chair, Autonomous & Uncrewed Vehicle Systems Industry Group
Nationally recognized by Chambers USA and Intellectual Asset Management, Dave is widely recognized as one of the leading transactional patent lawyers in Colorado—and the nation.
Named “Information Technology Law Lawyer of the Year” by The Best Lawyers in America in 2023, Dave St. John-Larkin has received repeat recognition in Colorado as a Colorado Super Lawyer and as one of Denver’s Top Lawyers. He currently serves as the Denver Office Managing Partner.
Dave represents clients in patent, commercial, and licensing matters related to software, telecommunications, and standard-setting. A patent lawyer with in-house legal experience, Dave is entrusted by several Fortune 100 companies to lead their patent acquisition and development efforts, particularly those involving nascent technology, such as artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and quantum computing.
With more than two decades of experience handling patent analysis, prosecution, and litigation matters, Dave has earned a reputation for providing concise, timely, and pragmatic legal advice. He excels at solving problems within fast-paced business environments, and Dave thrives at the intersection of emerging technology and law.
Dave is an inventor of more than a dozen patents, and he is fluent in several programming languages. He has strong experience in codecs, cloud-computing, IoT, and open source, and Dave co-chairs the firm’s Autonomous Vehicle Systems group, where he regularly works with AI/ML, augmented reality (AR), autonomous vehicles, blockchain, and robotics technology.
Dave is also a regular instructor and panelist on patent law topics. He is a board member of the Silicon Flatirons Center and past chair of the IP Section of the Colorado Bar Association. Active in the community, Dave is a board member for the Mountain West Chapter of Breakthrough T1D (formerly the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation) and he has worked with various other community organizations. Dave is also an avid drummer, a longtime Rush fan, and a travel enthusiast.
Areas of focus
Industries
Services
Education & Credentials
Education
- University of Colorado Law School, J.D., Production Editor, Journal on Telecommunications and High Technology Law, Member, University of Colorado Law Review, 2003
- Michigan Technological University, B.S., Computer Science, magna cum laude, 2002
- Northwestern University, B.S., Social Policy, with honors, 1997
Bar and Court Admissions
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Colorado
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U.S. Patent and Trademark Office
- U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado
Related Employment
- Merchant & Gould, Denver, CO, Partner and Co-Chair of Licensing Group
- Greenberg Traurig, Denver, CO, Associate
- EchoStar Communications Corporation (now Dish Network), Corporate Patent Counsel
Professional Recognition
Named "Information Technology Law Lawyer of the Year" by Best Lawyers in America, 2023
Ranked by Chambers USA, as “America’s Leading Intellectual Property Lawyers," 2021-2024
Listed in The Best Lawyers in America: Information Technology Law; Litigation - Intellectual Property; Patent Law, 2018-2024
Named in the Intellectual Asset Management (IAM) Patent 1000, 2015-2024
Named IAM Global Leader, 2020-2024
Listed in Denver's Top Lawyers by 5280 Denver's Mile High Magazine, 2019, 2021-2024
Named as a "Top Intellectual Property: Patent Lawyer" by 5280 Denver's Mile High Magazine, 2018-2020
Named a "Colorado Super Lawyer," by Super Lawyers, 2014-2024
Impact
Professional Leadership
- Silicon Flatirons Center for Law, Technology and Entrepreneurship, University of Colorado School of Law, Board Member and IP/IT Advisory Board Member
- Colorado IP American Inn of Court, Member and Past Board Member
- Colorado Bar Association, Intellectual Property Section, Past Chair
- Blackstone Entrepreneur’s Network, Growth Advisor
- Licensing Executives Society, Member
- Denver Bar Association, Member
- Colorado IP American Inn of Court, Member and Past Board Member
Community Involvement
- Economic Development Council, Downtown Denver Partnership, Member
Insights
News
Professional Experience
Patent Prosecution and Portfolio Management
With a focus in open-source and proprietary computer and software technology, Dave has prepared and prosecuted hundreds of patents in the fields of computer science and electrical engineering. Dave has been entrusted by several Fortune 500 companies with prosecution of patent portfolios having the highest strategic value. He has handled numerous appeals, reissues, and reexaminations, and is part of the Perkins Coie team having one of the highest volumes of Inter Partes Reexamination proceedings at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
Representative technology of patents that Dave has prosecuted include: audio- and video-compression and processing technology, blockchain technology, business methods, client-server systems, content access systems, consumer premises equipment, cryptographic systems, databases, data center systems, digital audio and video processing and recording systems, file backup, management, and synchronization systems, graphical user interfaces, interoperability technology, local- and wide-area (Internet) networking technology, location- and temporal-based awareness systems, medical ventilators, drones and UAV/UVS technology, mobile telephony, multimedia streaming and management systems, operating systems, retail and enterprise software, remote-sensing, robotics, signal processing, and telecommunications equipment, interfaces, protocols and systems.
Licensing and Contracts
As the former co-chair of a licensing group and as prior in-house counsel for a Fortune 500 corporation, Dave has more than a decade of experience handling all aspects of licensing, including drafting, negotiation, and enforcement of complex domestic and international license agreements, with the value of several agreements exceeding several hundred million dollars. Dave’s experience includes drafting and negotiating agreements in the areas of telecommunications, content distribution and management (including first-of-kind digital rights and content distribution agreements), manufacturing and distribution, cloud services, product development, intellectual property licensing, joint research and development, confidentiality, and technology transfer. Dave has also handled contract and intellectual property due diligence matters related to investment-backed financing and mergers and acquisitions of public and private companies.
Dave’s licensing and patent analysis experience also includes counseling of clients about standard-setting, and technical standards, notably including the 3G, 4G, LTE, MPEG-2, H.264/MPEG-4 AVC, H.265 HEVC, VP8, RTP, MPEG-TS, DVB, NTSC, ATSC, CSS, PGP, OpenGL, OpenGL ES, Bluetooth, ZigBee, AllJoyn, IEEE 802.11, IEEE 802.16, programmable, semantic, and real-time web architecture (e.g., REST, JSON, HTTP, RDF, and HTML 5) standards. Dave understands the technology and licensing underlying many of these and other well-known standards, including standards promulgated by 3GPP, ETSI, IEEE, ISO, ITU, W3C, IETF, IPSO Alliance, Open Interconnect Consortium, Open Connectivity Foundation, the Thread Group, and the AllSeen Alliance.
Dave also has extensive experience advising clients on open-source licensing, including software licensed under variants of the GPL, LGPL, and other restrictive open-source licenses.
Patent Analysis
Dave’s patent analysis experience has encompassed evaluation of infringement, validity, and valuation in support of patent assertion, licensing, and litigation matters. He has overseen portfolio targeting, monetization (including acquisitions and liquidations of patent portfolios), and product clearance efforts, with many projects having a high profile with corporate management.
In particular, Dave’s patent analysis experience has focused on the following technologies: proprietary application and operating system software (e.g., OS X, Windows, Palm OS, and Unix), open-source application and operating system software (e.g., Android, iOS, GNU/Linux, Chrome OS, webOS, and Windows), mobile software and hardware, cloud and enterprise software, data center systems, cryptographic systems, authentication and data integrity (e.g., watermarking) systems, digital audio and video compression, object-oriented programming, graphical user interfaces, computer hardware and architecture, real-time communications (e.g., streaming video), satellite technology (including LEO, NEO and GEO satellites), wired and wireless networking communications and protocols, digital and analog circuits, signal processing, semiconductors, component object models, database management systems, query languages, smart grid systems, automotive technology, medical devices (e.g., ventilators, auto-injectors, inhalers, and medical software), unmanned vehicle systems (UVS)/unmanned aerial systems (UAV) (i.e., drones), and bicycle technology.
Patent Conflicts and Litigation
As both in-house counsel and outside counsel, Dave has significant experience handling a variety of patent litigation matters. In particular, Dave handles pre-litigation (patent assertion) matters that often require the rapid assessment of non-infringement and invalidity positions, evaluation of potential damages, and determination/implementation of strategic cost-control and response options. He has also handled landscape and freedom-to-operate/freedom-to-license patent analysis matters, involving the assessment, classification and pre-suit disposition of domestic and international patent assets. Without disclosing client representations, Dave’s pre-litigation conflicts experience notably includes representations adverse to the following companies: Acer, Blackberry, Broadband iTV, IBM, Interface IP, MPEG-LA, Nokia, Ronald A. Katz*, Qualcomm, Rovi, TiVo and Whitserve.
Dave’s representative litigation experience includes:
Sisvel International S.A. et al. v. Cradlepoint, Inc.
Wireless technology; Case No. 1-19-cv-1142-MN
RealTime Data LLC v. Code42 Software, Inc.
Data storage technology; Case No. 1-17-cv-02479-KLM
TiVo, Inc. v. EchoStar Communications Corp.*
Digital video recorder (DVR) technology; Case No. 2-04CV01 DF
EchoStar Technologies Corp. v. TiVo*
DVR technology; Case No. 5-05CV-81
Forgent Networks, Inc. v. EchoStar Communications Corp.*
DVR technology; Case No. 2:05-CV-318
EchoStar Satellite LLC, et al. v. Finisar Corp.*
Electronic program guide and digital video transmission technology; Case No. 06 CV 425
Acacia Media Technologies Corp. v. Comcast Corp.*
Video-on-demand (VOD) and streaming media technology; Case No. 05 CV 01114 JW; MDL No. 1665
*Prior Experience