Hong (Annita) Zhong

H. Annita Zhong is an associate in the Los Angeles office of Irell & Manella LLP, focusing on patent litigation and licensing disputes.  She has litigated cases before arbitral panels, in Federal District Courts, and before the International Trade Commission. 

Representative matters include:

• representation of a patent licensor before the International Court of Arbitration in a licensing dispute with a licensee, concerning the licensee's royalty payment obligations under the license agreement
• representation of patent holders in an ITC action involving memory devices and products containing the same
• representation of a major research university in a federal patent action involving digital television technologies, among others
• defense of an innovative biopharmaceutical company against alleged patent infringement by a major biotech company 

Ms. Zhong has experience across a broad spectrum of technologies, including semiconductor packaging designs and processes, memory chip designs and operations, consumer electronics, digital signal processing, wireless interconnection, and biotechnology.  Ms. Zhong is involved in all stages of the litigation, including pre-filing investigation, discovery, claim construction, witness preparation, and trials.  In addition to litigation, Ms. Zhong also has experience in patent portfolio evaluation and patent reexamination.

Ms. Zhong earned her J.D. from Yale Law School in 2009, where she served as a student director of the Community and Economic Development Legal Clinic (“CED Clinic”) and was a runner up in 2008-2009 Chubb Competition for excellence in legal draftsmanship.  At law school, she successfully helped a local non-profit organization refinance its multi-million dollar commercial mortgage at the height of the financial crisis and won a summary dismissal from a Connecticut state action for the same client.

Ms. Zhong received her Ph.D. in Inorganic Chemistry from California Institute of Technology ("Caltech"), and her B.S. degrees in Chemistry and Chemical Engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology ("MIT").  Between graduate school and law school, Ms. Zhong worked as a senior research scientist in the areas of catalysis, semiconductor packaging and bio-imaging at General Electric Company's Global Research Center ("GE GRC") in Niskayuna, New York.  Ms. Zhong is a co-author and co-inventor on peer-reviewed journal articles and issued patents.

Bar & Court Admissions

• 2009, California
• 2010, U.S. Patent and Trademark Office