About Libby Zehava
Libby Zehava Toub built a path that moves between engineering, in-house counsel work and law school classrooms. She trained as an engineer at the University of California, Berkeley, earning a B.S. in Industrial Engineering and Operations Research. She later completed a master’s in Industrial and Management Engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and earned a J.D. from Santa Clara University School of Law in International High‑Tech Law.
Her career began in engineering. In 1999 she worked as an industrial engineer at IBM. That early technical grounding preceded a turn to the law. While in law school she served as a judicial extern to the Honorable Jeremy Fogel in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California and as a legal extern in the Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section’s Cybercrime Unit at the Department of Justice in 2004.
After law school she joined IBM in a legal capacity. In 2006 she worked there as an intellectual property lawyer and an associate patent portfolio manager. Her in‑house path continued over the next decade and a half. By 2015 she was Senior IP & Licensing Counsel at Apple. In 2019 she took a principal counsel role on a contract with Capital One. Alongside that practice she has taught technology licensing subjects. She served as a tech licensing professor at Santa Clara University School of Law in 2020 and taught IP licensing at the University of California, Hastings College of the Law in 2022.
Toub’s work sits at the intersection of technology, patents and commercial agreements. She has handled patent portfolio management and licensing matters for both corporate and academic settings. Her background in industrial engineering informs how she approaches technical patent issues and contract terms. She is admitted to practice in California and New York.
Students and colleagues note that her classroom work responds to real transactional and litigation challenges. Instructors and corporate counsel often need examples drawn from current industry practice. Her courses have reflected the kinds of licensing negotiations and portfolio decisions she encountered at large technology companies and in-house legal teams.
Across roles in industry, government externships and law teaching, she has moved between drafting agreements, managing patent assets and explaining licensing strategies to practitioners and students. She lives at the crossing of technical detail and legal structure. Her current practice centers on intellectual property licensing and technology transactions.
