Kurt Pankratz is a first chair trial lawyer with decades of experience in high-stakes patent and trade secret disputes. Kurt's recent successes include a $210 million trade secret verdict against a competitor (the largest trade secret verdict of 2023), an almost $300 million verdict for a patent owner, an ITC exclusion order against several competitors (leading to a $75 million settlement in addition to other, confidential settlements), and a directed verdict for a defendant. In addition to his busy trial docket, Kurt also serves as the Chair for Baker Botts' Dallas Intellectual Property Department.
Kurt regularly handles cases in both federal and state courts and particularly enjoys cases that involve high-tech issues, where he can bring to bear his early experience and background in technology. Prior to his legal career, Kurt cut his teeth as an engineer working on classified government projects involving high-security networks, signals intelligence, and technology to enable creation and modification of secure physical documents.
Kurt's experience in industry and underlying engineering skills, coupled with his decades of legal experience, give him a strategic perspective that helps him take complex issues and make them accessible and understandable. As one of Kurt's clients explained: he "handles himself very well on his feet in court and has the ability to explain intricate details to a lay person." (Chambers USA, 2018).
Kurt excels at creative, early-stage solutions. He has negotiated deals on behalf of clients -- both for intellectual property rights holders and defendants -- for amounts totaling more than even the verdicts that he has achieved. In addition, he helps strategically craft and implement intellectual property protection programs for companies ranging in size from small start-ups to multinational corporations.
In addition to his current service as Department Chair for Dallas IP, Kurt previously served as the hiring partner for the Dallas office of Baker Botts.
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