Former Nokia Head of Litigation joins Bird & Bird as a partner in the international Intellectual Property and Tech & Comms groups

Joining from Nokia, where he was the Vice President and Head of Litigation, Richard managed Nokia's global commercial litigation and was a member of Nokia's Legal & Compliance leadership team.

Richard has considerable experience in managing multi-jurisdictional patent litigation. He has managed cross border patent litigations between Nokia and KPN, IPCom, Apple, HTC, Blackberry and Viewsonic. He was heavily involved in the dispute with Qualcomm, having overall responsibility for the actions in China. He also managed Nokia's ground-breaking arbitration on Standards Essential Patent valuations with Samsung.

Although he specialises in multijurisdictional electronics patent litigation, Richard has been involved in a wide range of international litigation and arbitration matters, from competition law to commercial  and tax disputes, as well as managing brand protection, trade marks, designs and copyright issues. He was also one of the small team of Nokia insiders who negotiated the Microsoft transaction, which was (unusually for an M&A transaction) largely handled in-house.

Richard has a particular focus on mobile telecommunications patent litigation and arbitration work. As a well-known figure in the patent litigation market, this move will further develop Bird & Bird's electronics patent litigation practice in the UK and internationally. He also has extensive experience of effectively dealing with IP on transactions and strategic IP advice.

Richard is a regular and well-regarded public speaker, particularly on issues such as cross-border patent litigation, the UPC and standard essential patents. He has been named twice in Managing IP's yearly list of the 50 most influential people in intellectual property and is regularly viewed as a corporate IP star by MIP.  In 2013 he was awarded 'In-House Counsel of the Year' by the Lawyer.

He sits part time as a District Judge in London and the South East, and in the Intellectual Property Enterprise Court.

Morag Macdonald, Co-head of Bird & Bird's international IP practice says: "Richard has a very wide skill set across technology, communications and intellectual property – three key areas of specialism for our firm. We are delighted to have someone of his calibre join our team."

Graeme Maguire, head of Tech & Comms adds: "Richard has been very well known to a large number of us for many years and is a significant addition to our team. His joining is another example of our commitment to enhance further and develop our market leading practice and reputation at a time when intangible rights and technological change are amongst the most important issues facing many businesses ."

Richard adds: "Having worked with Bird & Bird for a number of years, I am very familiar with their market-leading IP work. I am very excited to join my new colleagues in Bird & Bird's new London office, and look forward to further broadening the IP, technology and communications offering of the firm."