Chris is an intellectual property and complex commercial trial lawyer in Reed Smith’s San Francisco office.  She has achieved cost-effective wins for clients accused of infringing computer hardware and software patents in a wide range of industries, including video game publishing, Fintech, ride sharing, consumer hardware and electronics, Wi-Fi semiconductors, mobile printers, healthcare software and hardware, wireless security cameras, Bluetooth-enabled tracking devices, cloud content management, and electronic loyalty programs.  She also has substantial trial experience in patent cases – including as first chair – in the country’s most active patent litigation venues, such as the Eastern District of Texas, the Northern District of California, the Eastern District of Virginia, the International Trade Commission, and the Patent Trial and Appeal Board. 

Chris also specializes in the Section 101 patent defense and has eliminated millions of dollars in potential damages exposure faced by clients in patent infringement lawsuits.  She has invalidated numerous patents under Section 101 in tribunals throughout the U.S., often at the pleading stage. Exemplary wins include (1) MIAX v. Nasdaq, CBM2018-00030, 00032, where Chris argued as lead trial counsel for MIAX, invalidating two Nasdaq electronic trading patents that were asserted against MIAX in parallel district court litigation; (2) University of Florida Research Foundation v. General Electric Co., 916 F.3d 1363 (Fed. Cir. 2019), which affirmed a judgment whereby Chris invalidated a patent under section 101 relating to collection, conversion, and display of data collected from bedside machines and which articulated a precedential opinion that Law 360 dubbed one of the Federal Circuit’s “most significant patent rulings since the beginning of 2019”; (3) Smart Authentication IP, LLC v. Electronic Arts Inc., 2019 WL 4305556 (N.D. Cal. Sept. 11, 2019), where Chris invalidated a two-factor authentication-related patent that had survived an inter partes review validity challenge; (4) Pebble Tide LLC v. Arlo Technologies, Inc., 2020 WL 509183 (D. Del. Jan. 31, 2020), where Chris invalidated two patents focused on wirelessly outputting data from one device to another that had been asserted in over two dozen cases around the country; and (5) Allen Medical Systems Inc., et al. v. Mizuho Orthopedic Systems, Inc., Case No. 22-cv-02462-YGR, Dkt. 53 (N.D. Cal. July 5, 2022), where Chris invalidated two patents relating to display of certain information on hospital bed graphical user interfaces.

Chris is also deeply committed to the advancement of women and serves as the Chair of Reed Smith’s Women’s Initiative Network in San Francisco