Kyle Mason

Associate, Houston

Biography

Overview

Kyle Mason is an associate in the Houston office of White & Case and a member of the Firm's Commercial Litigation group. His practice focuses on complex commercial business disputes, intellectual property litigation, and high-stakes energy litigation matters.

Kyle has experience counseling and advising a broad range of domestic and international clients, including technology companies, energy companies, construction companies, manufacturing companies, and financial institutions. He has represented these clients in a variety of disputes involving breach of contract claims, business torts, trade secret misappropriation, and patent infringement matters at the trial and appellate levels in state and federal courts across the country.

Prior to joining White & Case, Kyle was an associate at another international law firm based in Houston. During law school, Kyle was the Managing Editor of the SMU Law Review, a Master Level Advocate for the SMU Board of Advocates, and a national finalist in the Saul Lefkowitz Moot Court Competition. Kyle was also an extern for U.S. Magistrate Judge Kimberly Priest Johnson of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas and an intern for Justice Bill Whitehill of the Fifth District Court of Appeals of Texas and the U.S. Trustee Program at the Department of Justice.

Bars and Courts
Texas State Bar
US District Court for the Southern District of Texas
US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas
US District Court for the Western District of Texas
US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit
US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
Education
JD
SMU Dedman School of Law
BS
The University of Texas at Austin
Languages
English

Experience

Representative matters:

Intercos America — obtained dismissal of products-liability cases in Texas and Illinois;

BMC Software — following a federal trial, obtained a $1.6 billion breach of contract and fraud judgment on behalf of BMC against IBM;*

Foro Energy — defended Foro Energy in a week-long trial involving the alleged misappropriation of trade secrets relating to the design of an offshore umbilical deployment system and the alleged breach of a non-disclosure agreement. Foro prevailed on all claims;*

Hines Interests Limited Partnership — provided outside intellectual property counsel to Hines and assisted with trademark clearance, prosecution, enforcement, and licensing for various domestic and international Hines brand portfolios;*

Chemoil Corporation — successfully defended Chemoil Corporation in multiple patent dispute against ProFuel, LLC in the Western and Eastern Districts of Texas. Obtained a favorable settlement covering Chemoil's patent rights to zero-emission Gravity Fuel System utilizing a proprietary float valve prior to trial;*

International independent tank storage provider — successfully defended worldwide operator of tank storage terminals in multi-million dollar breach of contract and payment dispute brought by a general contractor hired to construct 10 petrochemical storage tanks at client's facility. Case settled favorably prior to arbitration hearing;*

Baker Hughes — successfully defended client in suit brought by German entity to obtain U.S. discovery for use in an international arbitration related to equipment installed in natural gas storage caverns throughout Germany. The application for discovery was denied at the district court level; contributed to appellate briefing in the Third Circuit;*

Global distributor of oil and gas tubular products — obtained confidential settlement rooting from breach of contract action against national reseller and IT infrastructure provider relating to implementation of enterprise resource planning software.*

*Matters prior to joining White & Case

Publications

Life After Lorenzo—The Strained Re-Emergence of Scheme Liability, 48 Sec. Reg. L. J. 45 (2020)

The "Presumption Against Extra(subjective) Territoriality"—Morrison's Confounding "Focus" Test, 38 Rev. Litig. 385 (2019)

Sabotage by Cabotage: The Jones Act's Attack on U.S. Energy, 12 J. Bus. Entrepreneurship & L. 63 (2019)

Constitutional Scrutiny of Natural Gas Storage: Why Taxing Temporarily Stored Natural Gas on its Interstate Journey Offends the Commerce Clause, 33 Notre Dame J.L. Ethics & Pub. Pol'y 489 (2019)