James Pooley

Overview:

As a “grandfather of this industry” James Pooley is held in high esteem and affection by trade secrets practitioners, in the US and globally, and rightfully retains his position as a Senior Statesperson.

“Jim Pooley is a wonderful man and absolutely deserves the Hall of Fame position,” says one individual. Explains another: “James Pooley at James Pooley, PLC, is considered a dean of the trade secrets bar, and no list would be complete without him.”


Key matters:

James Pooley no longer acts as lead counsel in legal cases. His professional practice is largely focused on serving as a testifying expert or providing advice on trade secret issues—by its nature almost entirely confidential work. The two significant recent matters where he has acted as counsel of record are:

  • On behalf of Qualcomm, the trade secret litigation brought against Apple which was settled as part of the global litigation settlement between the two companies in 2019, and a subsequent trade secrets action brought by Apple against a senior manager who left to form Nuvia, which was acquired by Qualcomm in 2021, and is still pending. In these lawsuits Pooley acted as co-counsel with Jones Day, Quinn Emanuel, and the Keker firm.
  • Trade secrets litigation brought by Applied Materials against Mattson Technology and a recruited engineer (a pending matter). In the Applied lawsuit, Pooley is co-counsel with King & Spalding.

Clients:

Qualcomm, Applied Materials, Aon, LG Chemical, Corning. Past clients: Adobe, Motorola, General Electric, Nichia, Nomura, UMC, Hewlett Packard.




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Law firm news
30 January 2026   Transatlantic ‘powerhouse’ Winston Taylor is set to launch in May 2026, with a particular focus on technology, life sciences and transatlantic services.
AI
30 January 2026   A content creator launches a lawsuit accusing the chipmaker of systematically circumventing YouTube’s access controls to harvest millions of videos for training its generative AI models.
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30 January 2026   The Court of Appeal heard arguments over ‘airwrap’ hair stylers in Dyson v Dreame, which could have big implications for non-EU businesses with operations in Europe, finds Sarah Speight.