Pillsbury Patent Litigation Group Continues to Grow in Silicon Valley and DC

Rusnak will be based in Washington, DC, but will work closely with his Silicon Valley colleagues, while Acharya will be based in Silicon Valley.

“Eric and Ranjini are well-known IP litigators who, together with Mike, bring a wealth of experience to our firm and our Silicon Valley office,” said Ed Perron, Pillsbury’s Managing Partner. “Their collective knowledge and extensive track records of success—particularly in patent cases and before the ITC—will undoubtedly benefit clients as they work to safeguard their latest technologies and innovations.”

Rusnak is a veteran intellectual property and trial lawyer who focuses primarily on advising clients in the technology sector. He advises on all manner of patent, trade secret, copyright, false advertising, and other IP disputes and has extensive experience before the International Trade Commission, having litigated more than 20 ITC investigations to date. Prior to joining Pillsbury, he served as Practice Group Coordinator for K&L Gates’ Intellectual Property Litigation Practice, where he shared global responsibility for the firm’s IP litigation resources and strategy.

Acharya has represented a variety of leading technology companies in complex IP disputes in both U.S. courts and the ITC. While at K&L Gates, she served as lead attorney in one of the first trade secrets misappropriation cases brought under the Defend Trade Secrets Act and is also regularly engaged to counsel on the development and enforcement of intellectual property policies in conjunction with employment contracts, licensing programs and joint development agreements.

Jack Barufka, head of Pillsbury’s IP practice, added: “To support client demand, we have made a concerted effort over the past few years to increase our ITC and litigation capabilities in Northern California. The addition of Eric, Ranjini and Mike—together with the notable recent growth of our San Francisco IP practice—positions us extremely well to meet that growing need. This is a highly capable team of lawyers who know each other extremely well and present unique synergies with the rest of our practice.”

The arrivals of Rusnak, Acharya along with Zeliger from K&L Gates in Silicon Valley represent just the latest IP hires made by Pillsbury in recent months. In 2018, the firm added patent litigators Chris Kao and David Tsai, trademark, copyright and licensing counsel Vijay Toke, and renowned trial lawyer Ken Keller and special counsel Christopher Stretch, all in San Francisco.

“Pillsbury’s reputation in the tech sector, the strength of the firm’s global platform and its lawyers’ very-real commitment to collaboration have all exceeded my expectations since joining,” added Zeliger. “Eric and Ranjini both reflect those values perfectly and will fit right in. I’m just thrilled to be able to practice with them again.”

From household name consumer electronics companies to highly specialized equipment manufacturers to seed-stage startups, Pillsbury handles all types of technology matters for all sizes and types of companies. More than 250 lawyers across the U.S., Europe and Asia serve clients throughout their life cycle and around the globe, successfully guiding established tech industry behemoths through business-critical transactions and disputes and nurturing shoestring startups so they can become market leaders.