Dean Dunlavey retired from the partnership in December 2017. He is the former Local Department Chair of the Litigation & Trial Department in Orange County. His practice focused on patent infringement, trade secret misappropriation, unfair competition, and other intellectual property litigation.
Dean tried and won numerous cases in federal district courts and before the International Trade Commission. In numerous other cases he obtained summary judgment in favor of his clients, or the other side capitulated after suffering a major setback in court. He obtained multiple judgments forcing unsuccessful plaintiffs in patent infringement cases to pay his clients’ attorney’s fees. At the time of his retirement, he collected nearly US$11 million in such fees for his clients.
Dean litigated cases in diverse technical fields, including:
- Stored value cards and related banking products
- Computer and networking software and systems
- Internet security and malware detection software
- Product activation software
- Data protection and high availability systems
- Hard disk drives
- Power converter circuits and methods
- Analog and digital electronic devices and circuits
- Integrated circuit and MEMS fabrication
- Biotechnology, medical devices, and diagnostic methods and equipment
- Wireless communications, telephony
- Advanced fuel injection systems; mechanical assemblies
Prior to joining Latham & Watkins, Dean served as an Assistant United States Attorney in the Central District of California (Los Angeles), where he successfully prosecuted numerous significant cases. For example, in United States v. Manning, et al., Dean obtained the extraditions and subsequent convictions of political extremists responsible for a mail-bomb murder.