>Dr. Richard Thurston was appointed
as Vice President and General Counsel of TSMC from January,
2002, and is responsible for legal and intellectual
property management.
Dr. Thurston is famous for his global experience in
commercial, technology and international law.
Prior to joining TSMC, Dr. Thurston was a Partner at
Kelt Capital Partners, LP, Addison, Texas and the Dallas,
Texas law firm Haynes and Boone for five years before
then. His practice covered general corporate matters,
technology-related transactions, mergers and acquisitions,
joint ventures and divestitures, venture capital investments,
foreign trade and investment, and the global protection
of intellectual property rights. Before Dr. Thurston
joined Haynes and Boone, he served as the Regional Counsel,
Asia Pacific and Vice President, Corporate Staff, Assistant
General Counsel for 12 years at Texas Instruments, where
he spent time in both their Dallas headquarters and
Tokyo. He was responsible for both the legal activities
of Texas Instruments throughout the Asia Pacific region
and merger and acquisition activities. The scope of
his legal experiences included foreign trade and investment,
technology transfer, general corporate matters, intellectual
property rights issues, management of corporate entity
affairs, contracts, strategic alliances, and dispute
resolution for 40 different subsidiaries. Prior to his
post at Texas Instruments, Dr. Thurston was an Associate
at Duane, Morris & Heckscher, Philadelphia, PA.,
U.S.A.
Dr. Thurston graduated Cum Laude with a B.A. degree
in History from Alma College, and an M.A. degree and
a Ph.D. degree in East Asian Studies from University
of Virginia in the U.S. He received a J.D. degree from
Rutgers School of Law at Camden, New Jersey in the U.S.
in 1980. Dr. Thurston also studied R.O.C. Law at Soochow
University, 1975-1976, while researching his Ph.D. dissertation:
Civil Law Reform in China, 1906-1930. As a bilingual
professional, Dr. Thurston is fluent both in English
and in Mandarin. He also teaches courses in Entrepreneurism
at the Southern Methodist School of Law and the School
of Management, University of Texas, both in Dallas,
Texas, U.S.A. In September, 2002, Dr. Thurston will
teach courses in Soochow University and National Chiao
Tung University in Taiwan. |