Brian Claassen leverages his legal experience and deep technical aptitude to successfully resolve high-stakes technology disputes. He has protected his clients’ valuable trade secrets and patents through litigation, including obtaining exclusion orders, preliminary and permanent injunctions. Brian navigates the most complex issues with poise. He co-chairs the firm’s electrical, semiconductor & computer technology litigation committee.
Brian develops clear strategic guidance that leads his clients to success in district court, the International Trade Commission (ITC), the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB), and appeals. Brian’s litigation victories have resulted in exclusion orders from the ITC, injunctions in federal courts, and multiple defense victories. On two separate occasions, Brian has persuaded the PTAB not to institute six separate petitions challenging his clients’ patents. Brian has also invalidated dozens of patents, including those purporting to cover industry standards.
Clients entrust Brian to master and present their most technically complex matters. Brian’s technical experience in electronic product design, including digital and analog hardware, signal processing, firmware and software development, helps him immediately understand his clients’ most complex technical issues. Brian has protected his client’s leading technology in industries including noninvasive monitoring, cellular phones, robotics, and semiconductors. Brian has also successfully challenged patents purporting to cover USB, side-curtain airbags, signal processing, and magnetic resonance imaging. Brian’s electrical engineering background gives him the ability to master wide-ranging technologies, such as wireless communications, signal processing, medical devices, automative electronics, semiconductors, consumer electronics, and digital and analog circuitry.
Brian is an active leader of the bar and involved member of the California legal community. He is a founding member and served in numerous positions with the Howard T. Markey Intellectual Property Inn of Court. He also served as President of the Federal Bar Association Orange County Chapter. A leader within Knobbe Martens as well, Brian co-chairs the firm’s electrical, semiconductor & computer technology litigation committee. He also serves on the firm’s pro bono and litigation committees and is past chair of the firm’s mentor committee. Brian has been recognized by leading intellectual property publications for his outstanding work in intellectual property litigation.
Before joining the firm, Brian developed embedded systems and signal processing devices as a Senior Software and Hardware Engineer at QSC Audio Products.
The team obtained a preliminary injunction, ordering Lamego and True Wearables to take all steps necessary to prevent the publication of confidential information in numerous patent applications. The Federal Circuit affirmed in January 2022. The trial court conducted a bench trial in March 2022, where Mr. Claassen and the team secured a ruling that Lamego misappropriated trade secrets, breached his fiduciary duty, and violated his employment agreements. The Court ordered Lamego to abandon patent applications containing Masimo trade secrets and return Masimo’s information. The Court enjoined the sale of True Wearables’ products that contained Masimo’s trade secret technology.
Those Apple Watches, introduced after the pandemic started, included a “Blood Oxygen” feature to give a reading purporting to correspond to a user’s oxygen saturation. The parties tried the case in June 2022. In January 2023, an ITC Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) found that the Apple Watch infringes Masimo patents on technology for measuring oxygen in the blood and recommended exclusion of these watches. In October 2023, the ITC released its final determination and issued a limited exclusion order and cease and desist order against the Apple Watches at issue. In January 2024, the ban went into effect and Mr. Claassen represents Masimo in Apple’s appeal of the ban to the Federal Circuit.
- Recognized in Patexia's 2023 PTAB Intelligence Report as a “Top Performer” based on activity and performance before the PTAB
- Named a "Southern California Rising Star" by Super Lawyers magazine for his work in intellectual property litigation (2014-2018)
- Howard T. Markey Inn of Court Program of the Year
- 2017 - 2018 “Inventorship Mystery Dinner Theater”
- 2015 - 2016 “IP Ethics”
Co-author, "FBA/OC Honors Don Martens with the Judge Alicemarie H. Stotler Award at Annual Judges' Night" which was published in FBA/OC The Newsletter of the Federal Bar Association/Orange County Chapter. (May 2018).
Co-author, "Another Reason to Coordinate Discovery in Parallel Litigation – Circumvention in Section 1782 Requests," International Litigation News, Newsletter of the International Bar Association Legal Practice Division (April 2013)
Speeches & Seminars
Brian Claassen and Joshua Harrison, Ph.D, “IPRs and the Courts,” OCBA Intellectual Property & Technology Law Section Meeting (March 29, 2019)
Howard T. Markey Inn of Court, “Expert Witnesses in Patent Litigation: From Teva to Trial” Irvine (March 2015)
Brian Claassen, “Intellectual Property Basics – SBIR/STTR and Tech Transfer,” Cal State Fullerton’s Research Week (March 22, 2013)