Gunnar B. Gundersen

Gunnar Gundersen is an associate in the Los Angeles office of Irell & Manella LLP where his practice focuses on patent litigation both in federal courts and the International Trade Commission.  Mr. Gundersen has extensive experience handling high-technology cases involving wireless communications, satellite technology, speech recognition, DVR technology and memory devices.  In particular, he has litigated issues relating to processor design, broadband allocation, frequency allocation, signal switching technology, OFDM, Wi-MAX, Wi-Fi, DRAM, NAND Flash memory, DVR functionality and speech recognition model building. 

Mr. Gundersen's litigation experience includes all aspects of patent litigation from drafting a complaint to preparing for closing argument, including drafting claim construction briefs, preparing claim construction hearing presentations, drafting discovery plans and taking depositions both in the United States and abroad.  He also has experience working with prior art search firms, experts and client employees in the development of invalidity contentions and noninfringement arguments.

In addition, he has drafted a copyright appeal brief before the Seventh Circuit, as well as researched other copyright matters.  He has also worked on international arbitrations, utilizing his Spanish language skills, and been involved in transactional matters, from preparing IPOs to evaluating a patent portfolio.

Previously, Mr. Gundersen clerked for Judge Diarmuid F. O'Scannlain of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit where he worked in several areas of law, including trademark issues.

Mr. Gundersen is committed to pro bono work and has worked on a Supreme Court petition for certiorari involving First Amendment free speech issues in a secondary school setting and an immigration law report regarding local law enforcement of immigration law.  He is also a member of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals Pro Bono program.  In addition, he is currently lead counsel representing a formerly pro se Section 1983 plaintiff against Los Angeles County Sherriff’s deputies in the Central District of California.

Mr. Gundersen earned his J.D., summa cum laude, from Pepperdine University School of Law in 2007 where he was valedictorian, Dean's Scholar and Order of the Coif.  While in law school, Mr. Gundersen was on staff at the Pepperdine Law Review, and in 2006 won the Pepperdine School of Law & Middle Temple Moot Court Competition.  He was also the 2006 recipient of the Los Angeles County Bar Association's Outstanding Bankruptcy Student Award and the 2005 recipient of the ABA Minority Fellowship in Environmental Law.

Mr. Gundersen earned his B.S. in Environmental Engineering from the University of Southern California in 2004 where he was selected to be one of only 100 students from his class to receive a full tuition Trustee Scholarship from the University of Southern California. 

During his time at the University of Southern California he was a Merit Research Scholar and performed research within the Water Quality Engineering & Technology Group in the Environmental Engineering Laboratory.  His work resulted in being awarded second place in Physical Science, Math and Engineering at the Undergraduate Symposium for Creative and Scholarly Work at the University of Southern California in the Spring of 2002 for a research project coauthored with a fellow undergraduate entitled “Biotechnology for Removal of Ammonia Nitrate and Sulfate From Reverse Osmosis Concentrate During Water Reclamation.”

Additionally, Mr. Gundersen was selected as a Supplemental Instructor by the University of Southern California to provide supplemental instruction to struggling students in the subject area of Physics: Electricity and Magnetism.  He was also awarded the General Motors/League of United Latin American Citizens Scholarship each year of his undergraduate career.

Publications

• “High Court’s First-Sale Ruling Unlikely to Impact Patent Exhaustion Theories,” the Daily Journal, April 11, 2013.
• Gunnar Gundersen, Note, Exxon Mobil Corp. v. Allapattah Services, Inc.: The Wrath of Zahn. The Supreme Court's Requiem for "Sympathetic Textualism," 34 Pepp. L. Rev. 835 (2007).

Seminars & Speaking Engagements

• Guest Lecturer, Patent Litigation Course, Loyola Law School (Spring 2013)
• Panelist, Judicial Clerkship Institute, Pepperdine School of Law (Spring 2013)

Bar & Court Admissions

• 2008, California
• U.S. District Court for the Central District of California
• U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California
• U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California
• U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
• U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit