Bracewell announced this week that it has fortified its intellectual property team by bringing back a couple of firm alumni.
Austin litigators Michael Chibib and Conor Civins, both graduates of the University of Texas School of Law, have returned to the Texas-based firm after practicing for the past five years at Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman.
Bracewell leaders point out that Texas, and the Western and Eastern Districts of Texas in particular, continues to be a popular venue for patent litigation. Recent data shows that the Western District, which includes Austin and Waco, has surpassed the Eastern District’s decade-plus reign as the most popular jurisdiction in the state for businesses and individuals to file patent lawsuits.
The shift has occurred as a result of the U.S. Supreme Court decision in TC Heartland v. Kraft Foods and the arrival of U.S. District Judge Alan Albright to the Western District of Texas bench in September 2018.
Chibib, who is a former general counsel of the Austin-based alternative energy company Active Power, represents companies in the semiconductor, telecommunications, electronics and software fields. He also has an active post-grant practice before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s (USPTO) Patent Trial and Appeal Board.
Civins handles commercial litigation matters in addition to patent litigation, trademark and trade secret disputes. He has argued before the Federal Circuit and the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.
Chibib and Civins are two of 10 Bracewell alumni in Texas who have rejoined the Houston-based firm over the past two years after practicing elsewhere. The duo identified three main reasons for their decision to return: the people and culture; the opportunity to better serve their clients, particularly in IP litigation matters in the increasingly active Waco Division of the Western District; and the firm’s strengths as a litigation and transactional firm in the energy and technology sectors.
Bracewell’s newest additions are currently handling a trade secret matter and a trademark matter in the Waco Division of the Western District.
The two lawyers count Trilogy Software, BMC Software, Nautilus and Slyce as clients.