Biography
As a 20+-year veteran in the field of intellectual property law, Elizabeth Chien-Hale brings an entrepreneurial, client-side perspective to the services of protecting intellectual property rights across borders, especially between the United States and China. As a patent attorney, Elizabeth brings a combination of skills, including in-house and outside counsel, litigation and prosecution, and US and international work experience.
Elizabeth has degrees in mechanical engineering and computational linguistics from UC Berkeley. She started her career in Silicon Valley firms serving clients such as 3M, Palm, Adobe and Applied Materials. Growing up in Taiwan and the United States, Elizabeth is fluent in Chinese. Through her Chinese language skills, she quickly added litigation to her practice areas, serving Chinese/Taiwanese clients in ITC and district court cases.
She then moved to an international law firm’s Hong Kong Office, pioneering its patent practice with high-profile Hong Kong companies, including Cheung Kong, PCCW, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, and many start-ups.
She continued her prosecution/litigation practice in her in-house capacity with Apple, Industrial Technology Research Institute (“ITRI”) of Taiwan, and Eaton, handling cross-border disputes in Asia Pacific. As Apple’s former Senior Patent Counsel/China Coordinator, she provided legal/IP assistance for its outsourced manufacturing process. As the APAC IP Director for Eaton Corp., Elizabeth oversaw all issues relating to intellectual property, especially patents and trademarks, in the Asia Pacific region.
Upon returning to California, she is now in private practice at the international boutique firm of Appleton Luff. She continues to serve her clients to procure patents and trademarks, and she also assists with other IP dispute/licensing matters between United States/China and other parts of Asia.
Elizabeth is licensed to practice in California and the District of Columbia. She is also registered to appear before the US Patent and Trademark Office. She is a frequent lecturer on topics on international intellectual property rights and teaches as an adjunct professor at the Santa Clara University School of Law.
