Patent Acquisitions – When Are They HSR Reportable?

Ngoc Pham Hulbig’s practice focuses on counseling regarding U.S. and global premerger notification requirements.  She has extensive experience in preparing filings under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act and has coordinated competition filings around the world for complex and high-stakes transactions.  Ngoc also counsels clients in the full range of antitrust matters, including mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, and in connection with investigations by the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Federal Trade Commission.  She has experience representing clients in matters involving a wide variety of industries, including software, airlines, pharmaceuticals, gaming, spirits, chemicals, credit, financial services, and security.

Tim heads Clifford Chance's US antitrust practice and advises clients on antitrust issues in government civil and criminal investigations, the regulatory review of mergers and acquisitions, intellectual property and technology licensing, supply and distribution agreements, joint venture formation, retail pricing issues, horizontal and vertical restraints, private party civil litigation, and the adoption of antitrust best practices. Tim has advocated on behalf of dozens of clients before the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and U.S. Department of Justice, representing transacting parties and parties opposing transactions between their competitors. He brings significant experience in assisting clients through government antitrust investigations, representing targets of governmental investigations and non-parties cooperating with the government. He has litigated antitrust and other high profile cases before arbitration panels, and in federal and state courts across the US. His antitrust representations span numerous industries including telecommunications, software, business services, computer networking, banking and financial services, healthcare, electronic lotteries, satellites, solar energy, power distribution and generation, automotive, printing, pharmaceutical, media, and fire and security systems. 


Tim obtained his JD from Georgetown Law Center, cum laude, and his Bachelor of Science from the United States Naval Academy.

Deidre Johnson focuses her practice on antitrust and is head of Ropes & Gray’s premerger notification practice. She counsels clients on their obligations under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act and foreign premerger regimes and has successfully guided numerous clients through the premerger process, responding to informal inquiries and second requests as necessary. Deidre routinely represents buyers, shareholders and sellers in financial and strategic acquisitions of all types from leveraged buy-outs, stock acquisitions, joint venture formations and public takeovers to licensing transactions and co-development/co-promotion agreements. Her clients include multi-national corporations, private equity, venture capital and hedge funds, mutual funds and investment advisors. She also counsels executive officers and directors in HSR Act compliance in connection with the grant and exercise of stock and stock options, and advises clients with respect to permissible pre-clearance and pre-closing activities, including information exchanges.

Hartmut Schneider is a partner in the Regulatory and Government Affairs Department of Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP, resident in the firm’s Washington office.  Mr. Schneider practices antitrust law primarily before US agencies and courts and has extensive experience in securing merger clearance for transactions in a diverse range of industries.  He also regularly counsels clients on legal issues at the intersection of antitrust and intellectual property law, as well as on the compliance of joint ventures, other horizontal cooperation agreements and vertical distribution agreements with the antitrust laws.  Before relocating to Washington, Mr. Schneider worked in the Antitrust and Competition Department of the firm's Brussels and Berlin offices.  In addition to his US antitrust law expertise, Mr. Schneider has significant experience in EC and German competition law.    

Chris Williams is an associate in the Washington, D.C., office of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, where he is a member of the firm's antitrust and national security practices. His antitrust experience includes merger notification and clearance, civil and criminal litigation, government investigations, and business counseling. He has represented clients in a wide range of industries, including information technology, electronics and computer hardware, semiconductors, telecommunications, healthcare, life sciences, pharmaceuticals, and energy and utilities. 

Chris's national security experience includes counseling clients on matters affecting foreign investment, export controls, and economic sanctions laws. He has represented various companies in obtaining clearance before the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), as well as in obtaining export approvals and classifications, particularly in the area of encryption, from the U.S. Department of Commerce. 

Prior to joining the firm, Chris was an associate in the Washington, D.C., office of Squire, Sanders & Dempsey, where he practiced antitrust, international trade, export controls and economic sanctions, and foreign investment law. During law school, he studied comparative law and Latin American competition, trade, and foreign investment law in Chile and Argentina. He was also a fellow in the Marshall-Brennan Constitutional Literacy Program, through which he co-taught a course on constitutional law and juvenile justice at a public high school in the District of Columbia.