Media and Telecommunications

Mergers and Acquisitions

• Advised the E.W. Scripps Company in a merger and a related spinoff transaction with Journal Communications involving broadcast operations and newspapers in multiple markets.
• Represented a leading streaming media provider in its acquisition of the streaming and downloadable content of a major electronic and mobile device manufacturer, which involved complex data privacy issues and content licenses.
• Advised Advance Publications Inc. on the sale of Fairchild Fashion Media and the Fairchild summits and event business to Penske Media Group.
• Advised cloud contract center software provider Uptivity in its acquisition by inContact for $8.8 million in cash and approximately $37 million in stock.
• Represented a media conglomerate in the acquisition of six broadcast television stations and an Internet news-gathering business.
• Advised a joint venture between a wireless technologies company and a Japan-based conglomerate that conducts research and development in the fields of machine-to-machine communications and the Internet of Things. In a single year, we filed nearly 100 patent applications for the new venture.

Intellectual Property

• Managed the development of several patent portfolios for a wireless technologies company whose devices are at the core of mobile devices, networks and services worldwide and that counts many leading brands among its licensees.
• Worked with a startup client as acting general counsel to secure worldwide patent and trademark rights and to successfully launch an international telecommunications system for underdeveloped countries.
• Handled more than 200 licensing and technology transactions for a household-name American multinational mass media and entertainment company; the transactions included third-party licensing and commercialization agreements, film and digital production, publishing agreements, clearances for film and digital media, content agreements for digital media, and franchise marketing agreements.
• Represented and successfully defended a global electronics manufacturing company in an intercontinental technology litigation involving gateways and standards with an exposure of approximately $117 million.
• Represent telecommunication and cable corporations in the analysis and enforcement of indemnification rights in more than 150 complex patent infringement litigations and pre-litigation cases, resulting in substantial decreases in exposure and the diversion and recovery of more than nine figures.

Media and First Amendment

• Represented a nonprofit firm, a major national newspaper and others in a libel suit in New York arising out of the content of an advertisement published in the newspaper and on the Internet.
• Represented a publisher in copyright infringement actions in New York and California involving claimed rights to photographs and manuscripts.
• Represented a newspaper in a civil rights action against a governor and state agencies for denying the newspaper’s First Amendment rights to comment freely on the governor’s actions.
• Vetted numerous manuscripts, including the best-selling biography of a former U.S. president.
• Served as co-counsel for John and (the late) Patsy Ramsey in successfully defeating defamation lawsuits accusing the couple of murdering their daughter, JonBenet Ramsey.
• Served as lead trial and appellate counsel for Hustler magazine in a right-of-publicity claim arising from publication of a news article and images of the late Nancy Benoit, a well-known professional wrestler and victim of a highly publicized murder in 2007.

Regulation and Enforcement

• Participated in the $3 billion acquisition of an operator of multiple major cable television systems by, among other things, achieving a waiver of the statutory cross-ownership restriction that otherwise would have prohibited the transaction.
• Secured a victory at the Ohio Supreme Court on behalf of a telephone company in a class action case involving claims of negligent billing practices.
• Participated in the strategy and brief preparation for defending a leased access producer’s challenge to a cable operator’s rates, terms and conditions of carriage, which resulted in dismissal of the complaint by the United States District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania and in settlement of the subsequent appeal approved by the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.