Billion-Dollar Lawyer Desmarais Quits Firm to Troll for Patents
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John Desmarais, a former top earner at the 1,500-lawyer firm Kirkland & Ellis, spent more than 15 years representing some of the world’s largest patent owners. Now he’s one of them, and he’s gearing up to slay the kinds of companies he once defended.
Desmarais, 46, in December bought a portfolio of 4,500 patents from Micron Technology Inc., the biggest U.S. maker of computer-memory chips. Today he opens the doors of a new law firm, New York-based Desmarais LLP, which will look for potential infringers of the patents owned by Round Rock Research LLC, his new patent-holding company.