The Intellectual Property Group’s leadership in the field of copyright litigation is longstanding.  The group’s attorneys represented Lotus Development Corp. (now part of IBM) before the U.S. Supreme Court in the landmark Borland case, defining the scope of copyright protection for computer software user interfaces.  The group’s Supreme Court work continued with representation of a Dow Jones/Reuters joint venture in the industry-wide (and ongoing) dispute regarding rights in the works of freelance writers contained in electronic databases.

The group’s attorneys represent clients in all types of copyright matters, with particular expertise in issues relating to software and information services.  For example, we represented Navitaire, a subsidiary of Accenture, in a case concerning infringement of the user interface for an airline reservation system, and helped persuade the Department of Justice to refrain from filing criminal charges against Reuters America in an investigation concerning the alleged misappropriation and copyright infringement of certain Bloomberg databases.  Our work for Lotus Development included four successful bench trials in federal court.  The group has handled numerous other copyright cases of varying sizes for clients such as the Blackstone Group, J.P. Morgan and Scholastic.