Education

Law School/Year: Chicago-Kent College of Law, 1991, Centennial Merit Scholar Graduate School/Year: George Washington University Law School, LL.M. in IP, highest honors, 1992

College/Year: Illinois Institute of Technology, B.S., Engineering, Concentrations in Electrical and Mechanical Engineering, magna cum ladue, 1986

Bar Admissions

California; Illinois; Washington

Practice Areas

Thane specializes in patent litigation, but has been active in other areas of intellectual property including trademark litigation and patent portfolio monetization.

Major Cases

For two decades, Thane has been litigation and trial counsel for small and large technology companies, including Kyocera International Inc., HTC, Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications, Applied Micro, Autobytel, MediaTek, Marconi and Intel. He is currently defending Kyocera, Sony Ericsson and HTC in separate multi-patent actions pending in Atlanta, San Diego and Washington, D.C. Thane has been active in all aspects of patent litigation actions from pleadings to post-trial motions, including appeal. Thane litigated patents relating to of consumer-related electronics, for example, electronic imaging technologies, cellular network architectures and related protocols, memory chip design, Internet-related technologies, software patents, computer network architectures, microprocessors, HDTV displays and image processing, semiconductor processing technologies, light emitting diodes, touch screen technologies, satellite set-top boxes, MPEG encoding, digital cameras, etc.

Professional Background

Thane is currently the managing partner in the San Diego office of Perkins Coie. Upon graduating magna cum laude from the Illinois Institute of Technology in 1986, he was hired by The Boeing Company as an electrical project design engineer. He was a member of a small engineering team that designed and oversaw the implementation of avionics that are still in operation today in large commercial jets around the world. He was a Centennial Merit Scholar at Chicago-Kent College of Law and graduated from there in 1991. At Chicago-Kent, Thane was active in extracurricular activities including serving as a professor’s research assistant and a member of the Moot Court Society. After furthering his legal education at George Washington University Law School, he also participated in an overseas study program at the Max Planck Institute in Munich, Germany, a world renowned IP institute. He also served as a judicial law clerk to the Honorable Wilson. A. Cowen, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.

Professional Affiliations

Thane is currently serving on the IP Advisory Board of George Washington University Law School, has spoken at the Annual Meetings of the Association of Corporate Counsel, the Licensing Executives Society and the State Bar of California, where he has presented on topics including "Avoiding Patent Litigation," "Effectively Reducing Litigation Fees," “Portfolio Mining: Sweat Equity Pays Dividends,” “Strategic IP Portfolio Management” and “Top Ten Federal Circuit Decisions.” He remains active in assisting the San Diego ACC membership.

Personal Affiliations

Thane has been active in helping to preserve his La Jolla Shores community. As a member of a local Architectural Committee, he worked pro bono in an environmental dispute concerning construction of an industrial facility in an area zoned for single-family residences. It was the first time that the California Coastal Commission authorized a revocation hearing concerning issuance of a building permit for the government and was a newsworthy event.

Personal Background

Thane was born and raised in a small town in Illinois called Hinsdale, located outside of Chicago. Thane and his wife Maria have been married for 14 years and live in a house that they have been renovating in La Jolla since 1999. They are both active in the community and assist in several charitable organizations. Thane was elected a member of the Architectural Committee for his homeowners association for consecutive two-year terms, which included considerable hours of pro bono work for his community and its residents. He also volunteers his time to ACC-sponsored charity efforts, which have raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for local charities. Thane and Maria have also been active in efforts to assist survivors of the recent earthquake/tsunami in Japan.