Practice Areas & Industries: Dewey & LeBoeuf LLP

Practice/Industry Group Overview

Increasingly, our clients' success in global markets is dependent upon the effectiveness of their information technology systems and the optimization of their intellectual property rights. The Information Technology and Intellectual Property (IT and IP) Transactions Group of Dewey & LeBoeuf LLP uses a multidisciplinary approach to support and enhance our clients' businesses, including the acquisition, maintenance, protection, enforcement, licensing and other exploitation of business-critical IT and IP assets.

Services Available

Our practice spans critical aspects of IT and IP transactions and counseling, including procurement and protection of IT and IP, enterprise licensing, joint ventures, strategic alliances and other corporate transactions involving IP and IT assets; outsourcing (including restructuring existing arrangements); offshoring; complex life sciences and telecommunications transactions; and legal compliance related to data, online communications and other IT assets.

As part of our counseling, we advise on the traditional areas of IP (including copyrights, patents, trademarks and trade secrets), as well as emerging areas of IT (such as privacy, security, document retention and new media issues).

Our clients need to know not only what IT and IP they own and can protect, but also how to fulfill their corporate governance requirements regarding the reporting of the value and integrity of such assets in their financial statements, including the establishment of proper data controls. In addition, we have helped our clients with the securitization of IP and IT assets, providing for yet another means for their exploitation and monetization. We conduct audits to evaluate clients' IP portfolios and identify clients' rights in and ownership of existing IP. We help clients enlarge their portfolios through strategic acquisitions and licensing to meet future business needs, and we provide brand management services to help develop and preserve businesses' reputations and goodwill in the marketplace. We also help our clients secure protection with governmental authorities through registration and prosecution, strategic licensing and enforcement programs.

Data security and privacy compliance issues are serious concerns for global enterprises and are becoming increasingly complicated as new and sometimes conflicting regulatory regimes are established around the world. We frequently advise our clients on the ownership and licensing of personal data, as well as compliance in cross-border personal data transfers arising from complex transactions (such as corporate reorganizations or the creation of new financial business products in foreign jurisdictions).

Our lawyers regularly provide counseling on record retention and electronic discovery, including issues arising out of discovery of multinational corporations and the effects of privacy and blocking statutes. In that connection, we provide advice on establishing defensible record retention programs and on ways to minimize the costs and risks involved in electronic discovery.

We stay informed about emerging marketing technologies (for example, Web 2.0) and ways that our clients can take advantage of such new technologies. In this light, we serve as integrated marketing counsel to consumer product companies to help them with cutting edge advertising across multiple and (often new) media.

The agreements we prepare and negotiate often cross over traditional practice area lines. As a general practice firm, Dewey & LeBoeuf is able to offer its clients the integrated experience and backgrounds of lawyers in a variety of practice areas, such as mergers and acquisitions, capital markets, private equity, investment management, bankruptcy, tax, antitrust, international trade and regulatory affairs, securitization, media and litigation, along with technology and IP experience.

Our experience includes the representation of leading financial services, insurance, media, data services, entertainment, computer (hardware, software and semiconductor), life sciences (pharmaceutical, biotechnology, medical devices) and healthcare, consumer products, natural resources and energy companies in a variety of IT and IP transactions with regard to the full spectrum of compliance issues. We tailor each client engagement team to meet the unique transactional and counseling needs of the client and to provide comprehensive and cost effective representation.