Intellectual Property

Leveraging Your Intellectual Property for Success 
Innovation and creative expression—protected by patents, trademarks, and copyrights—are some of the primary drivers of the U.S. economy. Intellectual property rights granted by the government to promote and protect innovation benefit creators, countless complementary companies, and society at large.

Manatt understands the importance of IP to your business and how it connects your success with that of your business partners. Our work with a broad range of IP-intensive industries over many years has led us to create and refine strategies for protecting and monetizing some of the most significant and valuable product innovations, brands, and content in the marketplace.

Wired Into the Digital IP World 
Manatt's IP team  possesses in depth knowledge of many nontraditional legal issues, such as rights of privacy and publicity, digital rights management, and idea misappropriation. In particular, our experience with entertainment-related information technology provides our lawyers with insight into advanced technologies such as computer hardware and software;  smartphones and tablets; wired and wireless networking; big data, cloud computing and storage; nanotechnology; and other cutting-edge and Internet-related technologies, including e-commerce and social media applications and solutions for trans-media and trans-platform tracking and managing of copyright-protected online content.

Leading-Edge Lawyers Protecting Cutting-Edge Ideas 
Well-entrenched in Los Angeles, New York, and Silicon Valley, Manatt's IP group provides top-notch transactional and litigation services, including counseling, registration, brand protection, mediation, arbitration, trial and appeal.

Copyright Litigation. Manatt is a go-to firm for copyright litigation. Our lawyers represent major record labels and music publishers, such as BMG Music, EMI Music Publishing, Arista Records, and Warner/Chappell Music, as well as prominent composers and recording artists including Usher, Bruce Springsteen, Jay DeMarcus of Rascal Flatts, the estate of Elvis Presley, Brian Wilson, Neil Young, and Jackson Browne, in copyright infringement actions across the country.  We enforce and defend copyrights in fictional characters (including Betty Boop, Barney, Rocky, Zorro, and Dennis the Menace), computer and communications software, literary works (including the works of authors John Steinbeck, Raymond Chandler, and Helen Fielding), motion picture and television formats and scripts, luxury goods and countless other works and industries.

Rights of Publicity. Manatt's lawyers have litigated or counseled regarding rights of publicity, false endorsement and false association claims on behalf of the estates of Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, and Miles Davis, as well as Barbra Streisand, Tiger Woods, Jim Brown, Sylvester Stallone, and others. We are at the forefront of emerging caselaw in which rights of publicity often clash with the First Amendment and technology. 

Trademark Registration & Enforcement. In our experience, there are strategic advantages to be gained by utilizing the interplay between the registration process, district court litigation, and actions before the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board.  We believe that trademark use and registration strategies are interdependent with trademark enforcement and litigation strategies.  We work closely with our clients to enhance the strength of their brands through correct trademark use and registration, and we develop corresponding trademark enforcement strategies geared toward identifying potential infringements at the earliest possible moment.  By partnering with our clients to develop individual approaches to trademark protection, we can make trademark prosecution and enforcement decisions with an eye toward how those decisions ultimately will affect litigation directed at any portion of our clients' trademark portfolios, resulting in significant cost reductions in litigation.  

Trademark, Trade Dress, and Unfair Competition Litigation.  Our lawyers aggressively prosecute and defend trademark and trade dress infringement, unfair competition, trademark dilution, cybersquatting, false advertising claims, and false designation of origin in federal and state courts throughout the country, as well as in TTAB proceedings, arbitration proceedings under ICANN's Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Procedures, and multinational proceedings. Our clients include H&M, Mark Fisher Footwear, Blue Shield of California, Nutrisystem, MillerCoors, IMAX, Hallmark, and Crayola.  

Patent Litigation. Our attorneys have secured record-setting patent infringement jury verdicts and settlements, and have successfully defended patent infringement suits seeking millions of dollars in royalties.  We have extensive experience in be-the-company litigation.  Manatt has validated, through litigation, the patents of clients such as Good Technology (fka Visto), obtaining significant settlements, including an eigh-figure settlement with Research in Motion, as a result.  We are in court and the ITC regularly, but our lawyers have also obtained favorable resolutions without litigation.

Helping You Manage and Monetize Your IP Assets 
Manatt's IP Group regularly performs audits to help clients inventory their IP assets. We develop plans to exploit those assets, advise on the formation of joint ventures and strategic affiliations, structure IP licensing deals, and provide wide-ranging services to producers and international distributors of feature films, music, and digital rights. For example, Manatt represented Alliance Films in the renewal of a long-standing distribution partnership with Miramax Films, which gave Alliance distribution rights in Canada for the entire Miramax library in addition to long-term Canadian distribution rights for all films that Miramax produces or acquires in the next five years.

Keeping Your Transactions on Track 
Manatt's Mergers & Acquisitions lawyers regularly tap the IP Group to conduct due diligence investigations of target companies. In some cases, IP is at the heart of the transaction, such as our representation of BMG Rights Management Gmbh in seven acquisitions of music publishers over a short time span, which added more than one million copyrights to BMG's catalog.

IP Strength Across a Broad Range of Industries 
Entertainment.  We handle the full spectrum of IP issues affecting the entertainment industry, and are particularly involved in the new and nontraditional ways in which entertainment is being delivered to consumers. Our experience includes:

• Representing online companies, Internet and wireless service providers, individual creators of music, record companies, and music publishers in agreements regarding the digital distribution and licensing of musical material.
• Working with game developers, publishers, distributors and their partners in the traditional entertainment industry to address issues that arise in the use of
  live-action footage, copyrighted characters and stories, and celebrity names and likenesses.
• Representing production companies and distributors in connection with licensing agreements and prosecuting illegal copiers and downloaders.
• Advising Internet and wireless service providers as producers, distributors, and consumers of audio and audiovisual content over a variety of platforms.

Consumer Goods. We protect the IP rights of the owners of some of the world's most famous brand names. Our lawyers regularly advise clients on the availability of new brand names intended for use in the United States and abroad, file and maintain  trademark applications in the United States and in over 200 countries; and develop, implement, and litigate  enforcement and anti-counterfeiting programs.

Advertising. In the advertising arena, we identify trademark and copyright issues, conform ads to media industry policies, answer challenges by third parties, defend against false advertising, product disparagement, unfair competition, and infringement claims. We also resolve compliance issues involving online campaigns and advise on the creation of privacy policies and data collection procedures.

Banks and Financial Institutions.  Manatt had its origins working with financial services clients. Our deep knowledge of this industry informs the work we do protecting bank names, financial service innovations, and product and service marks. We have also obtained and perfected security interests in their patents, trademarks, and other IP assets, as well as secured IP rights in e-commerce, ranging from domain names to online mortgage, credit, and other web-based financial services applications.