Christopher Lee

Chris Lee is a Managing Director of Lee Sheikh & Haan.  He has dedicated his three decade legal career to helping his clients navigate legal and business issues arising from intellectual property. Passionate about innovators and businesses built on innovation, Chris has represented his clients as their lead trial and appellate counsel in the enforcement of their intellectual property rights and in the defense of their business against allegations of infringement. His broad client base has included Fortune 500 multi-national corporations, emerging technology companies, individual innovators and their companies and private equity firms.

From very early in his career, Chris has been deeply involved in hands-on trial work, starting with his participation as one of the trial attorneys for a major supplier to the automotive industry during a month-long jury trial in his first year as an attorney and three jury trials for a well-known consumer product company in the “Rocket Docket” district of the Eastern District of Virginia over the next three years. Since that time, he has served as trial counsel in a large number of jury and bench trials in high-stakes patent, trademark, trade secret, breach of non-disclosure agreements, unfair competition and related business torts litigation before federal and state trial and appellate courts. Some of those trials led to verdicts in eight and nine-figure sums for his clients and decisions that are often cited by courts and other attorneys.

Chris has also obtained and successfully defeated motions for temporary restraining orders and preliminary injunctions in trademark, trade dress and copyright lawsuits. He has also successfully represented his clients as lead appellate counsel before the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, including obtaining reversals of trial court decisions that eventually led to eight-figure sum recoveries for his clients.

Chris also advises his clients on complex issues arising from the use of technology and intellectual property in business and monetization of intellectual property rights. He has advised and represented public and private operating companies, private equity firms, inventor-owned entities and investors on strategic sales and acquisition of patent portfolios, industry-wide licensing campaigns, cross-licensing and litigation financing, including on deals that involved eight-figure sums. Chris has been recognized by Intellectual Asset Management (IAM) as one of the world’s foremost IP strategists in the list of IAM Strategy 300 – The World’s Leading IP Strategists [for each of 2018 – 2021].

His clients have been involved in such businesses as cellular network technologies, medical equipment, imaging, semiconductor fabrication, nonvolatile memory devices, process control, digital photography, consumer electronics, power tools, retail marketing, election software and equipment, logistics, online marketing, digital printing, automotive equipment, coatings, footwear, processed food, household products, outdoor furniture, chemical processing, Internet search engines and wireless communication devices.

With a degree in chemical engineering with additional course work in business and electrical engineering from the University of Illinois and a law degree from the Chicago-Kent College of Law, Chris has also lectured on patent law and intellectual property practice, written articles on issues in patent litigation and financing of high-stakes patent litigation, and commented upon patent and trademark litigation in business publications.

Chris is a Master Member of the Richard Linn American Inn of Court, and is active in local and national bar associations. Chris is proud to serve as a mentor to young lawyers at the Inn of Court and other bar organizations and as an alumni advisor to a large number of law and engineering students.