I recently spoke at a CLE at my firm about how to successfully draft key provisions in an intellectual property license and negotiate them. Here is an edited transcript that I post in two pieces. In this first one I offer suggestions about drafting warranties, indemnities and limitations of liability and I also provider some drafting tips.
Andrew, joined by his colleagues Mark Grossman and Don Prutzman, will speak at the firm on Thursday morning January 24, 2013, on the art of the deal: how to negotiate intellectual property and technology transactions. The seminar will examine the difficult legal and business issues that often arise in software, copyright and trademark licenses, cloud computing and technology agreements.
I this week did a licensing program with Rand Brenner, President & CEO at Licensing Consulting Group. Rand is a licensing expert assisting clients in the acquisition and sales of licensing rights. His recent assignments include acquiring licensing rights for clients to several national brands including Major League Baseball, The NFL and NCAA Football.
At the program I discussed ten considerations the parties to a license agreement should keep in mind when negotiating it.
Introduction by Andrew Berger
Negotiating tech deals is a bit like trying to navigate through uncharted waters. There are no statutes or regulations to guide the voyage. Instead as my colleague Mark Grossman in his guest post explains below, negotiating a tech deal requires an understanding of unwritten industry norms. Armed with that understanding, you can push in those areas where you may have an impact and, as Mark aptly says “choreographing your concessions around areas where you’re not likely to win the battle anyway.”
Mark explains a number of invaluable “How Tos,” including how to draft a warranty to protect against the unexpected; how to protect against a loss when the unexpected occurs; how to limit the limitations on liability and how to avoid the tendency to see the deal’s starting point as the vendor’s form.
Authors: want some help in protecting your works? Here is the text of a talk I will give to the Cornell Entrepreneur Network on November 17 on how authors can protect their intellectual property. This post is long and ignores conventional wisdom that blog readers stop reading after 1,000 words.
But you may find some useful tips here.
Andrew will present a one-hour webinar sponsored by the Cornell Entrepreneur Network on Thursday November 17, 2011 at noon EST on how authors can protect their works, negotiate favorable publishing agreements and protect those works, including ebooks, from Internet piracy. The webinar is the third in a 3-part series. The other two will focus on How to Write and Publish Your Book and Twitter and Blog Creation and Strategy.
The Advanced IP Forum for Advertising Counsel will take place in NY from April 27-29. The program offers an impressive list of speakers from the content and media industries. Andrew will moderate a panel at this Forum on April 28. The program brochure is here
The April 28 panel will focus on combating IP infringement on the internet.
Andrew will be speaking at a one-hour webinar sponsored by the Cornell Entrepreneurial Network on February 23 about how to brand, license and protect your intellectual property. The webinar will cover:
• How can I transform my idea into a brand?
• What kinds of market strategies work best in the physical and digital worlds?
• How can I license my brand in various media: online, print, web, Facebook and more?
Andrew will be speaking about how you can avoid legal problems while building your brand through social media at a program sponsored by the New York Foundation for the Arts, the BUILD Education Initiative and the NY State Bar’s Entertainment, Arts and Sports Law Section.
The program will take place on Saturday February 12 and will run all day.
Long-arm statutes were designed to extend personal jurisdiction outside of state lines. But no doubt the legislators who enacted these statutes never dreamed that the long arm they were creating might stretch around the world thanks to the internet.
P enguin v. American Buddha is the latest case to shape the boundaries of the long-arm statute in an internet age.
