Paul F. Brinkman

Paul Brinkman is an intellectual property partner in the Washington, D.C., office of Kirkland & Ellis LLP.

Paul focuses his practice on Section 337 litigation before the U.S. International Trade Commission. He has won 17 of 19 trials at the ITC and won or favorably settled many more prior to trial. Chambers described him as “great on his feet in court” with a “calm, practical and reasonable demeanor which works well with ITC judges.” His work for plaintiffs has led to orders excluding competitors’ products from the United States and high-value settlements and license agreements. On the defensive side, he has a near perfect track record of wins following trial, has caused several complainants to abandon their cases prior to the hearing and has even persuaded the ITC to decline to institute an investigation.

Paul has been profiled twice by Law360 as an “International Trade MVP”—first as a key participant in the global smartphone patent wars and more recently for creatively pushing the ITC’s jurisdictional boundaries into new types of claims. He has worked in a wide variety of technologies, from consumer products to medical devices to industrial processes. Chambers has described his work as “unflappable, measured, and technically superb,” while IAM Patent 1000 calls him a “smart, patient and extraordinarily thoughtful ITC sharpshooter.”

Unlike many of his contemporaries, Paul came to the ITC from a trade-law background, and has worked extensively over his entire career with Customs and Border Protection, the agency charged with enforcement of the ITC’s exclusion orders. Paul has tried several customs disputes before the Court of International Trade, and is also skilled in working informally with Customs to secure enforcement against his adversaries’ products and safe passage for his clients’ redesigns. He served as co-chair of the American Bar Association’s Customs Law Committee from 2007–2009 and on the Steering Committee of the D.C. Bar’s International Section from 2006–2009.

Paul began his legal career at Kirkland, and previously led Quinn Emanuel and Alston & Bird’s ITC practices before returning to the firm in 2017. Paul is a life fellow of the American Bar Foundation and a fellow of the Litigation Counsel of America. He is currently listed in Chambers (Band 1), Who’s Who Legal (recommended in both IP Patents and International Trade), Super Lawyers (top rated), Legal 500 (leading lawyer), and IAM Patent 1000 (highly recommended).

Paul serves on the boards of Education For Hope, a charity providing educational assistance to West Africa and the trustees of the Scholarship Fund for Alexandria, and is a member of the Legal Aid Justice Center’s advisory council. Prior to his legal career he worked for two U.S. senators.