Michael Ng
Lawyer
Michael Ng serves as lead trial counsel in high-stakes trade secret, intellectual property and business litigation. He is sought out by clients around the world to manage complex disputes involving bet-the-company risk.
Those clients laud both his courtroom skills and strategic acumen. “Mike is stellar and exudes the utmost integrity in everything he does” one told IAM Magazine, noting his “fantastic judgment” and calling him “a trusted adviser who thinks outside the box and resolves legal problems while generating business value for his clientele, whose needs and operations he understands deeply.”
Naming him one of the top 100 lawyers in California, the Daily Journal recently praised Mr. Ng as a “24-year veteran” who has “built his career on the principle that legal advocacy can reshape entire industries,” while “handling some of the most complex patent, trade secret and technology disputes of the past decade.” Mr. Ng has led the Kobre & Kim Intellectual Property and Technology Disputes team to a high ranking in Chambers & Partners USA guide (Intellectual Property: Trade Secrets), which quoted respondents calling them an “incredibly mighty” team that “come out with huge wins” and from others extoling their “creative solutions to aggressively pursue strategy,” and “excellent client service.”
Mr. Ng and his team were named “Litigators of the Week” by The American Lawyer for a $605 million trade secret win for renewable fuels startup Propel Fuels following a five-week jury trial. The verdict was subsequently increased by $195 million in enhanced damages, in a decision by the judge calling defendant Phillip 66’s conduct “reprehensible from a business perspective” and commenting that its story “did not seem to hold up on cross-examination.” The resulting $833 million judgment stands as one of the largest trade secret awards in American history.
Mr. Ng is also known for developing programs to help innovators monetize high-value intellectual property assets. Listing him as one of the world’s top 300 intellectual property strategists, IAM called him "calm, thoughtful, open-minded in terms of solutions and an exceptional litigator all around," and said he "thoroughly understands the nuances of the litigation funding world and knows it better than anyone."
Mr. Ng has been recognized on myriad rankings and awards for top lawyers, including Daily Journal’s Top Intellectual Property Lawyers, Lawdragon’s 500 Leading Litigators in America, and as a Law360 “Legal Lion.” He is currently a finalist for Benchmark’s Litigation’s 2026 Intellectual Property Lawyer of the Year for the United States, which also named Kobre & Kim as one of the top 20 trial firms in the United States, gave a top national ranking to the firm’s IP practice, and named Mr. Ng both a Litigation Star and National Practice Area Star. In 2025, The American Lawyer named Kobre & Kim on the shortlist for Specialist Litigation Department of the Year, and named Mr. Ng one of the finalists “Intellectual Property Lawyer of the Year” in California.
Mr. Ng devotes considerable time to public service. He currently serves as the chair of the board of the Asian Law Caucus, the country’s oldest Asian-American civil rights organization, and on the board of the East Bay Community Law Center, a clinical affiliate of Berkeley Law School; through 2025 he co-chaired the Judiciary Committee of the Asian American Bar Association of the Greater Bay Area.
Those clients laud both his courtroom skills and strategic acumen. “Mike is stellar and exudes the utmost integrity in everything he does” one told IAM Magazine, noting his “fantastic judgment” and calling him “a trusted adviser who thinks outside the box and resolves legal problems while generating business value for his clientele, whose needs and operations he understands deeply.”
Naming him one of the top 100 lawyers in California, the Daily Journal recently praised Mr. Ng as a “24-year veteran” who has “built his career on the principle that legal advocacy can reshape entire industries,” while “handling some of the most complex patent, trade secret and technology disputes of the past decade.” Mr. Ng has led the Kobre & Kim Intellectual Property and Technology Disputes team to a high ranking in Chambers & Partners USA guide (Intellectual Property: Trade Secrets), which quoted respondents calling them an “incredibly mighty” team that “come out with huge wins” and from others extoling their “creative solutions to aggressively pursue strategy,” and “excellent client service.”
Mr. Ng and his team were named “Litigators of the Week” by The American Lawyer for a $605 million trade secret win for renewable fuels startup Propel Fuels following a five-week jury trial. The verdict was subsequently increased by $195 million in enhanced damages, in a decision by the judge calling defendant Phillip 66’s conduct “reprehensible from a business perspective” and commenting that its story “did not seem to hold up on cross-examination.” The resulting $833 million judgment stands as one of the largest trade secret awards in American history.
Mr. Ng is also known for developing programs to help innovators monetize high-value intellectual property assets. Listing him as one of the world’s top 300 intellectual property strategists, IAM called him "calm, thoughtful, open-minded in terms of solutions and an exceptional litigator all around," and said he "thoroughly understands the nuances of the litigation funding world and knows it better than anyone."
Mr. Ng has been recognized on myriad rankings and awards for top lawyers, including Daily Journal’s Top Intellectual Property Lawyers, Lawdragon’s 500 Leading Litigators in America, and as a Law360 “Legal Lion.” He is currently a finalist for Benchmark’s Litigation’s 2026 Intellectual Property Lawyer of the Year for the United States, which also named Kobre & Kim as one of the top 20 trial firms in the United States, gave a top national ranking to the firm’s IP practice, and named Mr. Ng both a Litigation Star and National Practice Area Star. In 2025, The American Lawyer named Kobre & Kim on the shortlist for Specialist Litigation Department of the Year, and named Mr. Ng one of the finalists “Intellectual Property Lawyer of the Year” in California.
Mr. Ng devotes considerable time to public service. He currently serves as the chair of the board of the Asian Law Caucus, the country’s oldest Asian-American civil rights organization, and on the board of the East Bay Community Law Center, a clinical affiliate of Berkeley Law School; through 2025 he co-chaired the Judiciary Committee of the Asian American Bar Association of the Greater Bay Area.
Languages
- English
- German
- Spanish