Travis Silva

On behalf of the Oakland Athletics baseball club, we tried a two-week federal Clean Air Act case against a West Oakland metal shredding facility. The case centered on allegations that the metal shredder, which is located a community that for decades has borne the brunt of industrial pollution, emitted excess air pollutants and had violated permitting conditions. We prevailed on several causes of action and obtained an order fining the metal shredder.

We defended SpinX Games in class actions and mass arbitrations relating to the gaming laws of multiple different states (including Washington, Kentucky, Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, New Jersey, Ohio, and Massachusetts). Issues included whether virtual currency is a “thing of value” under the gambling laws of various states. We favorably resolved the class allegations in a low-value early settlement that minimized intrusion into our client’s operations and preserved its business model.

We are defending DoorDash in a competitor lawsuit filed in San Francisco Superior Court by Uber challenging DoorDash’s business arrangements with restaurant partners. Uber’s lawsuit seeks to limit DoorDash’s ability to compete fairly, and DoorDash is mounting an aggressive defense.

We represented the County of San Mateo in California’s first-ever contested removal proceedings against an elected Sheriff. Following a 10-day evidentiary hearing, during which we presented testimony and evidence concerning conflicts of interest, retaliation, and mismanagement, a retired judge issued a 42-page advisory opinion finding multiple causes for removal. Relying on that opinion (and a prior voter-approved measure authorizing removal proceedings), the Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to remove the Sheriff from office. We are currently defending the removal on appeal.

We successfully defended Google against putative class action claims that YouTube is rife with copyright infringement and encourages the piracy of uploaded videos by removing copyright management information. The plaintiff, Maria Schneider, was an American composer and jazz orchestra leader, and the class challenged YouTube’s right to immunity under the safe harbor of the DMCA. We were hired three months before the case’s June 2023 trial date. After Judge Donato denied class certification, the KVP team prevailed in two very successful pretrial hearings, which dramatically limited the plaintiffs’ case, excluded their liability expert, and preserved strong licensing defenses for YouTube. The case was successfully resolved soon after.

We represented Moonton, a Chinese video game developer, in a lawsuit filed by Riot Games asserting claims of copyright and trademark infringement relating to Riot's mobile game League of Legends: Wild Rift. We filed a motion to dismiss based on the doctrine of forum non conveniens, arguing that Riot should be required to pursue its claims in China because its lawsuit was intertwined with and inconsistent with a pending Chinese lawsuit filed by Riot's parent company, Tencent. The court granted the motion and dismissed the lawsuit.

We represented the San Francisco Giants in a first-of-its-kind lawsuit brought by a former outfielder who alleged he suffered a career-ending concussion after colliding with a bullpen mound at Oracle Park. Attempting to avoid Major League Baseball’s mandatory arbitration provision, the player sued the stadium’s ownership entity, arguing it was separate from the Giants club. We successfully moved to compel arbitration on a novel theory, the case settled on favorable terms.

We represented Roche in a dispute concerning a breach of the company’s Collaboration Agreement with Plexxikon, Inc., now a subsidiary of Daiichi Sankyo. The agreement provides Plexxikon funding and Roche license to develop and commercialize certain drug candidates, which it successfully did with Zelboraf, a cancer-fighting drug. The agreement also provides Roche the right to bring litigation to enforce certain of Plexxikon’s patents implicated by the Collaboration Agreement. Plexxikon pursued a patent enforcement lawsuit against Novartis, which culminated in a $178 million judgment in favor of Plexxikon. However, under Plexxikon’s Collaboration Agreement with Roche, Roche should have been notified about the infringement and given the first right to proceed and control the litigation against Novartis, and was entitled to a portion of the proceeds of that litigation. We settled the dispute favorably.

We represented Zosano Pharma and its current and former CEOs in a consolidated securities class action concerning alleged misstatements regarding the company’s likelihood of FDA approval of its innovative lead product candidate, a migraine patch. The patch unexpectedly received a rejection by the FDA and then Zosano saw a drastic stock drop, which triggered plaintiffs to file this securities action and a follow-on derivative case. We prevailed on a motion to dismiss the purported class action and convinced the derivative action plaintiffs to also dismiss their case.

We successfully defeated a foreign crypto-casino’s efforts to unmask our client, who uses Kraken’s platform as a cryptocurrency wallet. We persuaded the District Court to permit our client to intervene and to file a motion to quash the foreign crypto-casino’s 28 U.S.C. § 1782 application for discovery into Kraken, then we ultimately convinced the Court to deny the application as a matter of discretion, allowing our client to preserve his anonymity.

We represented three immigrant families intentionally separated by the Trump Administration in 2018. Asserting novel claims under the Federal Tort Claims Act, we vigorously pursued the case until the eve of trial, when the government agreed to the largest settlement out of any of the 50 similar cases filed nationwide.

After a three-week trial in San Francisco Superior Court, we obtained a complete verdict in our client’s favor, disposing of contract and tort claims brought against our clients, a family office and related businesses.

We defended an Am Law 100 law firm against a malpractice claim arising out of its defense of its former client in class action litigation. Just weeks before the arbitration hearing, we settled the case on terms favorable to our client.

We obtained our client’s release in a habeas action challenging the Trump Administration’s eleven-month detention of an immigrant youth.