2024 DIVERSITY DATABASE UNDERWRITER Kilpatrick

Established through a merger between Atlanta-based Kilpatrick Stockton and Bay Area-based Townsend and Townsend and Crew in 2011, Kilpatrick is home to more than 670 attorneys practicing from coast to coast and on several continents. The firm’s performance is particularly strong in the contexts of intellectual property (IP) litigation, infrastructure, business law, and financial dealings.

A Peach of an Intellectual Property Firm

In 1874, Milton Candler and William Thomson founded the Atlanta practice that eventually evolved into Kilpatrick. Kilpatrick was the first law firm retained by the Coca-Cola Company, one of Atlanta’s largest businesses, to help secure the company’s federal trademark in 1893. With most of its offices located in the South, the firm boasted a roster of clients with household names such as Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina, Delta Airlines, and Krispy Kreme. In 2011, Kilpatrick—with effective business law, finance, copyright, and patent practices—joined with Townsend and Townsend and Crew, a California firm focusing on class action work and IP. Through the merger, Kilpatrick, which already had a substantial presence on the South and East Coast, added Townsend’s offices on the West Coast, Northwest, and Asia.

Intellectual Property Giants

A regular in the top 20 of Vault’s Intellectual Property/IP Litigation rankings, Kilpatrick is a legal powerhouse. The firm has more than 300 IP attorneys focused on advertising, copyright, patents, trade secrets, and trademarks, and their track record is impressive. Kilpatrick attorneys have managed more than 28,000 patent applications across the globe and more than 109,000 trademark registrations and applications worldwide. Since 2020, the firm has argued over 50 appeals before the Federal Circuit, handled over 320 IP disputes in the Federal District Court (and six before the International Trade Commission), and filed 120 proceedings before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board and over 1,200 before the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board. The firm’s work depends on a multidisciplinary approach based on the application of its attorneys’ knowledge of licensing, joint ventures, M&A, and other areas related to IP matters.

Making an Impact

Kilpatrick’s commitment to active citizenship enables its team members to drive positive change in community leadership, inclusion, philanthropy, pro bono, volunteerism, and sustainability, while advancing firm values and fostering corporate, nonprofit, and school partnerships. Some of its inclusion efforts include resource groups, implicit bias training, cultural celebrations, and firmwide conversations around current societal and workplace issues. The firm supports year-round educational programs and law school preparation programs for college and high school students in its 19 U.S. locations.

• Cobell v. Babbit, Cobell v. Salazar: Filed in 1996 and settled in 2010, the $3.4 billion payment for mishandling Native American lands and accounts was the largest settlement ever against the U.S. government.
• Adidas America Inc. v. Payless Shoesource Inc.: In the largest-ever jury award in a trademark infringement case, Adidas America won a $305 million judgment for copying its distinctive three-stripe shoe design. The copycat product used a near-identical design with four stripes. 
• Frito-Lay and Pepsi-Cola: In 1956, the firm handled the H.W. Lay & Company’s public offering in 1956. Then, it facilitated the 1961 merger of H.W. Lay & Company and Frito Company to form Frito-Lay, Inc., and, in 1965, handled the merger of Frito-Lay, Inc., and Pepsi Cola to form PepsiCo.
• California Class v. Microsoft Corporation: Representing the plaintiffs, California customers of Microsoft received $1.1 billion in benefits through a 2003 settlement of a class action lawsuit alleging violations of California’s antitrust and unfair competition laws.
• Smith v. Morton Thiokol Inc.: A lawsuit on behalf of the family of Michael J. Smith, the space shuttle Challenger pilot who died in its 1986 explosion, asked for actual and punitive damages of $1.5 billion. The suit was settled for an undisclosed sum.

• IP Firm of the Year for the Americas, 2024—Managing Intellectual Property
• U.S. Trademark Prosecution Firm of the Year for three consecutive years, 2024—Managing Intellectual Property
• Tier 1 ranking for Construction, Trademark: Litigation, and Trademarks: Non-contentious (including Prosecution, Portfolio Management, and Licensing), 2024—Legal 500
• 37 Kilpatrick attorneys recognized, 2024—Lexology Index (formerly Who’s Who Legal).
• Kilpatrick achieved a total of 140 Tier 1 practice rankings: 21 national Tier 1 rankings and 119 metropolitan Tier 1 rankings. Kilpatrick also earned 227 practice rankings across the United States and was Law Firm of the Year for Trademark Law, 2025—Best Law Firms