Heidi Keefe

Heidi Keefe is a partner in Cooley LLP's Palo Alto office, where she leads complex patent litigation for technology and life sciences clients. A registered patent attorney and former astrophysicist, Keefe was admitted to the California Bar in 1995 after earning her J.D. from Santa Clara University School of Law and her B.A. from Wellesley College.

Her practice spans district court patent trials, PTAB proceedings, Federal Circuit appeals, and matters before the International Trade Commission. According to Cooley, she has handled more than 260 patent cases and over 50 Federal Circuit patent appeals in recent years, the majority on the appellee side. She played a lead role in both of Facebook's patent jury trials to date — defending the company in Rembrandt Social Media v. Facebook in 2014, where the jury returned a complete defense verdict invalidating the asserted patents, and in the Cross Atlantic Capital Partners matter, which the Federal Circuit ultimately affirmed in Facebook's favor in 2014.

Her current client roster includes Box, Meta Platforms, Niantic, Snap, Absolute Software, and CoolIT Systems. Keefe is admitted to the Northern, Central, and Eastern Districts of California and Texas, the Ninth Circuit, and the Federal Circuit, and she is registered to practice before the USPTO. She has taught IP litigation at Santa Clara University and lectured at UC Berkeley and Stanford law schools.

Representative Matters

• Co-lead trial counsel for Facebook in Rembrandt Social Media v. Facebook (E.D. Va.), targeting the "Like" button; secured complete defense verdict and patent invalidation after a 5-day jury trial in June 2014. (2014) ^[2]
• Lead counsel for Facebook in Cross Atlantic Capital Partners (XACP) v. Facebook (E.D. Pa.), Facebook's first patent case; Federal Circuit affirmed patent invalidation in 2014. (2014) ^[2]
• Lead counsel for Facebook in EveryMD PTAB matter (May 2015); secured cancellation of online-messaging patent claims, affirmed by the Federal Circuit in March 2016. (2015) ^[2]
• Lead counsel for CoolIT Systems at the PTAB (August 2020); preserved validity of all challenged claims of a data-center cooling patent. (2020) ^[2]

Recognition

• Intellectual Property: Patent Litigation – California (Band 1) — Chambers USA (2025) ^[2]
• Leading Lawyer in Patents: Litigation — The Legal 500 US (2025) ^[2]
• 500 Leading Litigators in America — Lawdragon (2024) ^[2]
• Top 100 Lawyers in California — Daily Journal (2024) ^[2]
• Top 20 Influential Women in IP Law — Law360 (2023) ^[2]
• IP Star — Managing Intellectual Property (2023) ^[2]
• Top 50 Women in PTAB Trials — PTAB Bar Association (2023) ^[2]
• Best Lawyers in America: Intellectual Property Litigation — Best Lawyers (2024) ^[2]