Friedland Cianfrani Adds David G. Kim as Partner
IP Boutique Adds Harvard Law Alum, Biomedical Engineer to Firm’s Partnership
(November 14, 2024) California intellectual property boutique Friedland Cianfrani LLP announced today that IP litigator David G. Kim is joining the firm’s partnership. Mr. Kim joined the firm in January 2023 as special counsel.
Like name partners Michael Friedland and Joseph Cianfrani, Kim was prospering in a successful career at national IP law firm Knobbe Martens before joining the year-old Irvine-based boutique.
Kim, 37, earned his bachelor’s degree in biomedical engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology in 2009 and his law degree at Harvard Law School in 2015. He clerked for the Hon. Dale S. Fischer of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California in Los Angeles. He is also a registered patent attorney.
Kim has played a significant role in several of Friedland Cianfrani’s most important cases, with an emphasis on patent and trademark litigation. He has extensive experience in all aspects of IP litigation, having handled cases involving pharmaceuticals, medical devices, molecular diagnostics, nucleic acid sequencers, solar cells, and antennas, as well as matters relating to less complex mechanical devices. Kim has represented clients before federal courts, the International Trade Commission, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board, and the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board. He also previously worked as an associate at Covington & Burling and Milbank LLP.
Kim’s work as a law clerk for Judge Fischer was also a momentous year. “It was grueling, very tough, and extremely interesting work,” Kim says. “It took me outside of IP law as well, so I got to see the whole range of legal practice.”
“I knew David was a star when he first joined our former firm years ago as a summer associate, and I loved working with him over the years,” Friedland said. “He’s smart, creative, competitive, dedicated, and driven.”
“A few months after we started our firm, he sent me a text message,” Friedland continued. “I knew right away that he was going to ask if he could join us – and I couldn’t have been more excited. On top of the fact that David’s a great lawyer, he’s a perfect fit for our culture. He likes working with people. He treats everyone well. He’s patient, pleasant, and has an easy sense of humor. He’s a perfect team player. He’s exactly what we needed starting a new firm, and we’re thrilled to invite him to join the partnership.”
Kim, a native of the Atlanta suburbs, initially set out for an engineering degree because he enjoyed complex problem-solving and the challenges of engineering. But, during his years at Georgia Tech, while he was successful and enjoyed his education, he often thought about how much satisfaction he had derived from acting as an advocate for his parents—immigrants from South Korea. He is the first of his family to be born in the United States, and the first to graduate from college.
“When I saw what my efforts meant to my parents, law started to seem attractive as the way to keep doing that—working with people to help solve their problems,” Kim said.
At Georgia Tech, Kim got to put his knowledge into practice. “My team and I designed a device to measure the level of oxygen in a person’s blood. To test it, we each held our breath. It was a practical way to see whether the device worked. It did. It picked up that our blood oxygen dropped when we held our breath.”
Kim said that the highlight of his law school experience was preparing a brief and argument for a mock Supreme Court hearing at Harvard. “I had never done debate or moot court, so it was actually the first time I had that experience. It was eye-opening for me; I loved the challenge, the excitement, and the pressure of fashioning an argument and then standing up and making it.”
His recalls several important mentors, including Robert Pikowsky, the now-retired director of the Pre-Law Program at Georgia Tech, and Jerry C. Liu, a law lecturer at Georgia Tech who at the time was a partner at Atlanta law firm Amin, Turocy & Watson. But most important were Friedland and Cianfrani.
Both had welcomed and worked with Kim when he was at Knobbe Martens. Shortly after Kim heard that Friedland Cianfrani had opened its doors, Kim reached out to Friedland. “I had loved working with Mike and Joe at Knobbe. I knew how they practiced law and how they treated people,” Kim said. “As soon as I heard about their firm, I wanted to be part of it.”
Kim makes good use of what little spare time he has; he’s a supportive husband to a successful dentist; father of an energetic two-year-old boy, and an avid reader. He is a fan of Stephen King novels but names Haruki Murakami’s The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle as his favorite book. He is a devoted baseball fan and follows his beloved hometown Atlanta Braves—especially when they visit Los Angeles.
Friedland Cianfrani represents clients in patent, trademark, trade secret, and copyright litigation and related transactions and counseling in nearly every industry, from medical devices, to software, semiconductors, electric vehicles, consumer products, apparel, accessories, sporting goods, beauty products, furniture, and food and beverages.
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