Clement Naples

Clement (“Clem”) Naples is a leading patent litigator in the US and a partner in the New York office of Latham & Watkins. Mr. Naples’ practice focuses on litigating patent infringement, trade secret, and unfair competition actions in Federal and State courts, as well as in the International Trade Commission.

Over the course of his career, Mr. Naples has litigated multiple cases through bench and jury trials and represented clients such as Jaguar Land Rover, NVIDIA, AUO, Global Foundries, Hulu, Ciena, and top autonomous vehicle and mobile phone manufacturers in high-stakes cases. He has served as lead counsel in matters involving semiconductor manufacturing, wireless communications, automotive technology, and video compression technologies.

At one semiconductor related trial, Mr. Naples’ cross-examination of a technical expert revealed that the expert failed to disclose certain relevant technical materials, resulting in the court declaring a mistrial for two of three patents asserted against his client, NVIDIA. The jury returned a verdict of non-infringement on the third patent.  This result made news in the Bloomberg article entitled “Nvidia Wins Trial Brought by Samsung Over Memory-Chip Patent,” and the February 11, 2016 eWeek article entitled “Nvidia Wins Patent Trial Brought by Samsung,” where the author noted: “Originally, Samsung filed a lawsuit against Nvidia in 2014 on four patents, but by the time the case reached trial, it had been pared down to only one — Samsung had dropped one earlier and two more were thrown out after the judge ordered a mistrial.” As the Court explained in its order: “At trial, [the expert’s] testimony was inconsistent about whether he relied upon the undisclosed scans. On January 28, 2016, in response to questions on cross-examination by NVIDIA’s counsel, [the expert] clearly stated that he had relied upon material that was not disclosed as part of his report.”

Mr. Naples has particular experience in cases involving semiconductor manufacturing and optical systems. Prior to becoming a trial attorney, Mr. Naples was a Lead Optical Engineer at Silicon Valley Group Lithography Systems, now ASML. There, he focused on the optical performance of the Micrascan line of deep-UV step-and-scan lithography tools, optical metrology issues, and software for modeling the machines. On the legal side, this has translated into representing LCD manufacturers such as AUO, US and foreign-based based semiconductor manufacturers, and fabless semiconductor companies. Mr. Naples successfully represented a client in a worldwide patent enforcement action against Samsung involving semiconductor manufacturing patents.

Mr. Naples serves on various firm committees and regularly speaks on IP issues. Superlawyers recognized Mr. Naples as a Top Rated IP Litigation Attorney in New York in 2018, and a Rising Star in 2014. Mr. Naples is sought out for his advice on IP issues by business leaders and was interviewed by Global Finance Magazine for their article “Pricing And Protecting Patents,” September 2016.