The American Lawyer highlights Jeffrey Chanin's trade secrets win for Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Mr. Chanin led the team which represented the world’s leading semiconductor foundry TSMC against China’s leading semiconductor manufacturer SMIC in the largest trade secret misuse case ever tried. SMIC owed its existence to technology stolen from our client, and faced our damages claim of $2 billion which would have exceeded SMIC's entire market value. Parties produced nearly 18 million pages of documents and conducted 266 days of deposition in the U.S. and in Asia. Following a jury verdict in favor of our client, SMIC agreed to pay $200 million in cash and approximately $130 million of its company stock. Ultimately TSMC's goal was to protect its intellectual property, not shut down its competitor, and so settled for far less than it could have recovered. For foreign companies that market their goods and services in the U.S., this case established that California’s trade secret statute will protect the intellectual property essential to those goods and services, even if the theft occurred in Asia.
Mr. Chanin’s career over the past three decades has spanned the full range of complex intellectual property, commercial, and white collar criminal defense matters. His forte is strategic leadership in complex, high-stakes litigation, and the preparation and presentation of technically challenging matters. Mr. Chanin has won numerous pretrial and trial victories for his clients in trade secret misappropriation, patent infringement, copyright, legal malpractice, civil false claims matters, and in criminal cases ranging from money laundering to manslaughter.