William Shaffer is the Managing Partner of the firm's Silicon Valley office. He focuses his practice on patent prosecution and counseling, patent portfolio building/management, patent analysis and post-grant patent procedures, including reexamination and reissue proceedings. As part of his client counseling practice, Mr. Shaffer assists clients with formulating validity and infringement opinions, patent enforcement and licensing strategies, and patent design-around efforts.

Mr. Shaffer has assisted patent litigation efforts in jurisdictions including the Northern District of California, the Eastern District of Texas, the Eastern District of Virginia and the International Trade Commission. He has provided in depth analysis of individual patents and patent portfolios in connection with venture capital investments and corporate acquisitions and advised prominent venture capital backed start-ups. Specific technologies Mr. Shaffer has experience with include, among others, computer architecture, software- and Internet-based technologies, semiconductor processing, semiconductor manufacturing equipment, chip-level packaging and hard disk drives.

Prior to joining the legal profession, Mr. Shaffer was a software engineer for GTE Government Systems Corporation.

In 2011, Mr. Shaffer was recognized as a Northern California Super Lawyer for Intellectual Property by SuperLawyers magazine.