Food and discussion begins at 12:30 pm. Everyone invited.

In what is sometimes referred to as “copyright troll” litigation, plaintiffs have been filing federal (and some state) lawsuits against “John Doe” defendants across the country seeking to require ISPs to identify alleged copyright infringers based on captured IP address/date/time stamps. The “litigation” almost never proceeds beyond the identification stage, because identified individuals are likely to settle. Early on, these lawsuits were filed against hundreds or even thousands of John Doe defendants at a time. After some resistance from the courts, plaintiffs are now typically (but not always) limiting the defendants in a single suit to those who are alleged to be members of a single BitTorrent “swarm” and who are believed to be located within the forum state. The speaker will lay out important assumptions and constraints, as well as the privacy, procedural, and other issues raised, then will open the topic for discussion.

Bio:

Bart Huffman, an intellectual property lawyer at Cox Smith, and head of the Texas-based law firm’s Privacy and Data Security practice, has experience with a wide range of data management, privacy, and data security issues. With a systems engineering background, and a proven track record in intellectual property, e-commerce, and federal litigation matters, he offers a unique, broad perspective for the critical data and intellectual property issues faced by cutting-edge companies today. His clients, which include Fortune 500 companies as well as regional players, rely on his advice in connection with strategy and policy issues and initiatives, commercial technology services and other transactional matters, compliance advice, and privacy and intellectual property litigation. Bart is admitted to practice law in Texas, California and New York, and before various federal courts. He is also a USPTO Registered Patent Attorney and an IAPP Certified Information Privacy Professional.