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Chia La is managing counsel on Waymo’s IP team, where he currently leads patent strategy and operations, in addition to serving as IP lead for design rights, engagements with standards setting organisations, commercial deals, and mergers and acquisitions. Waymo is an autonomous driving technology company with a mission to make it safe and easy for people and things to get where they’re going. Mr La works closely with Waymo’s business leaders to build strong IP rights spanning patents, trademarks, copyrights and trade secrets, to proactively prepare the company for a range of enforcement and defence scenarios.
Before joining Waymo, Mr La served on Google’s patent team for almost 10 years, most recently leading a team of attorneys supporting four of Google’s billion-user products (Android, Play, Chrome and Photos). In that role, he partnered closely with the litigation and business teams to address ecosystem-wide patent issues for Android and Chrome OS. Mr La has also led the patent team supporting Google’s consumer hardware business unit and was previously patent counsel for Google Cloud.
While at Google, Mr La developed deep experience in patent portfolio development, managing over 10,000 assets worldwide over his tenure and working closely with other team leads to evolve Google’s patent portfolio strategy. He also negotiated complex IP issues in over 100 deals, including commercial deals with some of Google’s largest OEM and semiconductor partners as well as strategic patent acquisitions.
Before moving in-house, Mr La worked at a leading global law firm, where his practice spanned patent litigation, prosecution, and transactions. He holds a JD from the Fordham University School of Law, along with bachelor’s and master’s degrees in electrical engineering and computer science from MIT.