Cravath Hires 2nd Top Official From Obama Administration

Cravath, Swaine & Moore has hired David J. Kappos, the departing director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office, making it the second time that the prominent law firm has added a former senior Obama administration official to its partnership.

Mr. Kappos, a former senior lawyer at I.B.M., served for three and a half years as head of the patent office. He has received widespread praise for spearheading improvements to the country’s outdated intellectual property system by making it more efficient and improving patent quality. He stepped down from his post at the end of last week and joins Cravath on Wednesday.

The hire is a coup for Cravath, which plans to use Mr. Kappos’s expertise to advise clients on intellectual property issues related to big corporate mergers as well as to assist in the litigation f high-stakes patent and trademark disputes.

“We were convinced Dave would not only significantly enhance our ability to serve our clients’ needs, but also fit into â€" and even enhance â€" the culture of our firm,” said Allen Parker, Cravath’s presiding partner.

The culture issue is an important one for Cravath, which typically grooms its partners from within and rarely hires partners from outside the firm. Mr. Kappos is only the fourth outside partner in a half century. Yet he is the second high-ranking government lawyer recently hired by Cravath. Christine A. Varney, the White House’s former top antitrust lawyer, joined the firm in August 2011.

Cravath’s strategy in recruiting Mr. Kappos and Mr. Varney goes beyond its hiring topflight legal talent, but speaks to the ever-increasing im! portance of government policy to corporate America.

The firm is somewhat unique in that, other than a small London office, it houses all of its 439 lawyers in New York. Such geographic proximity, Cravath’s management believes, reinforces its esprit de corps among its staff.

Today, having a physical presence in Washington is considered a must for nearly every large law firm. Cravath, however, has resisted the urge. Instead, it has embarked on a strategy of adding lawyers like Ms. Varney and Mr. Kappos, moving them to New York but benefiting from their vast Washington contacts.

Founded in 1819, Cravath has deep roots in patent law. In the 19th century, the firm handled the electric light bulb patent litigation for Thomas Edison and the telegraph patent litigation for Samuel Morse. Today, it serves as the primaryoutside counsel for the telecommunications company Qualcomm and has litigated numerous drug patent cases for pharmaceutical giants like Bristol-Myers Squibb and Novartis.

Though Mr. Kappos, 51, has never worked at Cravath, but he is no stranger to the firm: Mr. Kappos worked for 26 years at I.B.M., one of Cravath’s most important and longstanding clients. Mr. Kappos served in a variety of roles at the technology company, working first as an engineer and then as a lawyer. From 2003 to 2009, he was the company’s assistant general counsel ! for intel! lectual property.

In Washington, Mr. Kappos, who earned his law degree from the University of California at Berkeley, took over a patent office that had failed to keep up with the revolution in technology and the advent of the digital age.

”There is no company I know of that would have permitted its information technology to get into the state we’re in,” Mr. Kappos said in a 2011 interview with The New York Times. ”If it had, the C.E.O. would have been fired, the board would have been thrown out, and you would have had shareholder lawsuits.”

Mr. Kappos put in place substantial changes as head of the patent office. He was instrumental in the passage of the America Invents Act, patent legislation that, among other things, created a new process for challenging issued patents The measure, legal experts say, is helping to curb the number of frivolous patents.

Large technology companies have long complained about overly broad patents and “patent trolls,” whose business is buying patents and filing infringement lawsuits seeking royalties.

“I think Dave joining Cravath is a marriage made in heaven,” said Donald J. Rosenberg, the general counsel of Qualcomm, who spent three decades at I.B.M., where he worked closely with Mr. Kappos. “It’s a loss for the country but a real gain for Qualcomm and the firm’s other clients.”