Joseph Yang

Joseph Yang is a partner at PatentEsque Law Group, LLP.

Joe specializes in structuring and negotiating IP-centric deals (patent licensing/sales, technology transactions, JVs, and IP aspects of mergers & acquisitions), and in the use of patents as strategic business assets. He has been lead counsel on hundreds of deals involving tens of billions of dollars in value – across the computer, electronics, semiconductor, internet, manufacturing and healthcare industries. Joe has also been an arbitrator, overseen patent litigation, and led development of corporate patent portfolios.

Joe previously served as VP & General Counsel of Cryptography Research, Inc. (now part of Rambus Inc.), helping it develop and monetize a patent portfolio under which 7 billion chips a year are currently being made by the company’s licensees worldwide.

Joe is a recognized authority on IP law. He has been named one of the “World’s Leading IP Strategists” and “World’s Leading IP & Technology Licensing Lawyers” by Intellectual Asset Management magazine, and is profiled in “Marquis Who’s Who in American Law” and “Marquis Who’s Who in America”. Joe co-chairs the “Advanced Licensing,” “Advanced Patent Licensing” and “Understanding the IP License” courses at the Practising Law Institute in NYC, SF and Chicago, and frequently speaks before other organizations such as the Licensing Executives Society, the American Bar Association, and others. He has written for journals and books, and been cited by U.S. federal courts and treatises, on patent and licensing law. Joe has also co-taught the “Patent Law and Policy” course at U.C. Berkeley School of Law.

Before PatentEsque Law Group, Joe co-founded and later led the IP Strategy & Transactions practice based in the Silicon Valley office of the multinational law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP. Before that, he was at other New York- and California-based law firms. In his early career, Joe was a research engineer in the aerospace and energy industries. He holds a J.D. from Stanford and a Ph.D. (engineering) from the California Institute of Technology, where he has served on the boards of the Caltech Alumni Association, and the Caltech Associates.