Technology

Through representations and local partnerships in Greater China, India and Japan, our multi-disciplinary team brings an in-depth understanding of the nuances of business practices, laws, and cultures across Asia in service to technology industry clients. We assist companies that desire to operate in China, India and Japan. We also represent Asian-based global companies expanding into the United States.

Anchored in Beijing, our Greater China Practice focuses on client needs in multiple industries related to a wide variety of business, regulatory, and litigation matters in China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. Our India practice leverages our backgrounds in business and finance, intellectual property and outsourcing to assist companies that are headquartered in India in dealing with U.S. matters, as well as to counsel international clients operating in India in conjunction with local counsel. In Japan, we partner with a leading Japanese law firm, TMI Associates, to provide clients access to a broad range of local legal services as well as our own global resources.

Specifically, we have represented companies in digital imaging, IT consulting, wireless charging, electric vehicle manufacturing, wireless pharmaceutical test monitoring devices and many other cutting-edge sectors to form joint venture and strategic alliances, and deal with employment matters in the United States. In just one matter, we represented an online video company in receiving a $250 million investment from a large Japanese mobile carrier—the largest private investment made in the Chinese online video industry.

Morgan Lewis offers a full menu of services to help clients succeed in a highly competitive and dynamic environment. We assist public and private companies in structuring, negotiating, and implementing a wide range of technology-based transactions. We also provide a comprehensive suite of corporate and transactional services, handling everything from venture capital financing to mergers and acquisitions.

Among our hundreds of emerging business and technology clients, we have worked on initial financing, as well as virtually all components required for a successful business, including corporate structuring, trademark clearance and registration, various copyright and advertising issues and related agreements, domain name disputes, and patent prosecution. We also assist with real estate, tax and executive compensation matters. From semiconductor companies to the world's largest supplier of flash storage card products, to the leading provider of on-demand software as a service, to a global provider of electronic vehicle networks, our portfolio of clients depends on us to be as innovative in our counseling as they are in their businesses.

Major corporate and transactional services we provide for technology companies include assistance with:

• Collaborations, strategic alliances and joint ventures
• Angel and venture capital financing
• Public offerings
• Securities regulation
• Mergers and acquisitions
• Technology transfer and licensing
• Consulting, development and implementation services
• Open source software advice
• Standards body advice
• Intellectual property strategy
• Commercial transactions
• IP analysis and support in mergers, acquisitions, and financings

Morgan Lewis's Immigration Practice has one of the firm's highest concentrations of technology clients. We offer an understanding of immigration issues and cultural values around the globe, and particularly in Asia. We combine the legal talents of one of this country's most well-recognized teams of business immigration attorneys and paraprofessionals with cutting-edge, Web-based technology to provide clients with a critical level of responsiveness and comprehensive counsel.

We also place a high value on the close connections between a multinational corporation's immigration program and its other essential operations, including its internal employment policies; corporate compliance and governance; and plans for expansion, corporate development, and growth. Areas in which we provide support and counsel include:

• Inbound visas and permanent residence
• Immigration compliance
• Outbound visa services

For more than half a century, our lawyers have helped clients negotiate the ever-changing landscape of federal, state, and local laws that govern the workplace and ultimately affect a company's bottom line.

From the conference room to the courtroom, we cover all concerns: employment counseling and single-plaintiff litigation, complex employment and employee benefits litigation, single-employer and industry-wide collective bargaining, Department of Labor matters, and intellectual property disputes.

We also cover intricate employee benefits matters, understanding that technology companies confront unique labor, employment, and benefits issues because of the rapid pace of innovation and change in the industry and the accompanying competition for talent. From employee benefits arrangements to employment agreements and confidentiality and noncompete covenants, we offer technology clients a full complement of services in this space.

Morgan Lewis represents technology companies in all aspects of litigation and dispute resolution in the United States and around the world. Litigation clients include industry leaders in computer equipment and networking, software solutions systems, semiconductor equipment, consumer electronics, telecommunications, medical devices, and other technical areas. We also represent some of the world's most innovative startups engaged in industries such as online retailing, telecommunications, and battery technologies.

Because of our extensive experience in the technology industry and familiarity with its business trends, we often anticipate—and are able to respond quickly to—our clients' needs—whether they involve an alleged breach of a distributor contract, an intellectual property dispute, a government investigation, or a consumer class action. Our experience litigating matters for technology companies includes matters involving:

• Antitrust
• Commercial disputes
• Consumer and commercial class actions
• Copyright
• Environmental
• ERP implementation disputes
• Government investigations, White Collar, and FCPA
• Insurance and insurance recovery
• Securities litigation and enforcement
• Software licensing disputes
• Privacy
• Post-acquisition strategic partnership disputes
• Qui tam litigation
• Tax
• Trademark
• Trade Secrets

We have represented companies involved in a wide variety of industries—including technology, information and communications, online dating, media, music, among many others—in outsourcing various business processes. We have negotiated deals encompassing the supply of server and other infrastructure services, finance and accounting services, back office technology, cloud computing, and email and marketing functions. Although our primary focus is with the customer community, we have worked extensively with outsourcing suppliers.

Our attorneys also are involved in the outsourcing of all phases of information technology operations, such as data center operations, client server hosting, and desktop application development and maintenance. In working on the outsourcing of business processes, we seek to achieve financial and performance objectives for our clients while ensuring that the people most affected—internal and external customers, suppliers, employees—are protected.

Our lawyers, patent agents, and technical professionals bring to clients strong backgrounds in a wide variety of disciplines, including computer software, electrical, mechanical, bioinformatics, and business methods. Many of our patent lawyers and patent agents have science or engineering backgrounds, and many have advanced technical degrees. A large number were formerly patent examiners at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) or have worked within industry. Together, they represent clients before agencies such as the PTO, and in court to enforce and/or defend against patent infringement claims, including trial and appeals to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, which hears all patent appeals.

We regularly:

• Prepare and prosecute patent applications, including reexamination, reissue, and interference cases.
• Coordinate the filing and prosecution of patent applications abroad, particularly in Asia and Europe.
• Counsel in the development and commercialization of technology to help clients avoid infringement of third-party rights, as well as enforcement of patent rights against others.
• Render opinions on patentability, infringement, and validity.
• Perform intellectual property audits and due diligence investigations.
• Negotiate and draft patent and technology license agreements.

Our technology clients are no stranger to the myriad privacy and data security challenges companies confront at virtually every level of operations, from human resources and competitive intelligence to marketing and customer service. With industry-specific command of a full spectrum of privacy and data-flow concerns, Morgan Lewis lawyers customize privacy solutions and policies to meet each client's business needs.

A practical approach with the big picture in mind allows our clients to minimize risk while pursuing the collection, storage, and security of data for a wide variety of legitimate purposes—among them, customer service and product improvements or compliance with HR policies and financial reporting requirements. When disputes or litigation are under way or unavoidable, trial-ready attorneys versed in privacy matters focus on efficient resolutions to the client's best advantage.

For technology companies—from start-ups to global brand owners—Morgan Lewis provides personalized and efficient service backed by the resources of an international law firm to assist our clients in capitalizing upon and protecting their prized trademarks, copyrights, trade secrets, and related intellectual property. We represent some of the most significant technology, networking, internet, software and hardware companies in the world. With offices in North America, Europe and Asia, we are prepared to handle matters arising anywhere in the borderless expanse of the Internet. Our extensive knowledge of computer science, electrical engineering, mechanical engineering and related disciplines means that we have the technical and scientific perspective within a single firm to develop a strategic and unified IP protection strategy.

A significant part of our practice—along with counseling, due diligence in transactions, and all areas of strategic brand management—is devoted to enforcement and aggressive pursuit of our clients’ interests in cases of infringement, dilution, false advertising, unfair competition or related commercial disputes. We handle matters involving trademark, copyright, trade secret and trade dress issues, as well as advertising, rights of publicity and contest issues, in the United States and internationally. We also represent companies in multi-jurisdictional litigation (including conducting and managing discovery outside the United States). We handle a wide variety of matters arising from the Internet, including domain names, keyword advertising, social media “handles” and page names, metatags, and user generated content .

We provide lifetime protection and enhancement of our clients’ entire trademark, copyright and trade secret portfolios, along with advice related to a wide range of marketing and promotional activities. As part of our portfolio management services, we work with clients on evaluation and ownership issues, and in creating strategies for reducing tax liability, as well as—where appropriate and desired—structuring IP licenses to avoid triggering compliance obligations under federal and state franchise disclosure and registration laws. In addition, we have a robust practice in assisting in the acquisition, sale and other exploitation of trademarks, copyrights and other creative intellectual property.

We help clients protect their inventions, processes, methodology, information, formulae, client lists, ideas, and other trade secrets utilizing an approach that begins with strategic counseling. We advise on—and litigate—different forms of protection for various aspects of the same product or service, including utility and design patents, copyrights, trade secrets, trademarks, and trade dress. We also prepare e-mail and Internet use policies, covenants not to compete, no-solicitation agreements, and no-raid agreements.

We assess and mitigate risks associated with the possible disclosure of trade secrets or improper transfer of copyrighted material as a result of the movement of employees or other reasons. We work with companies to establish best practices and audit their performance in order to minimize risks and to strengthen the legal protection afforded their information. In addition to audits, we design other protection programs and tailor confidentiality agreements to protect employers, independent contractors, joint venture partners, suppliers, purchasers, business partners, contractors, and potential buyers and sellers of proprietary technology.

Our services include:

• Drafting specialized confidentiality agreements to protect employers, independent contractors, joint venturers, suppliers, purchasers, business partners, contractors, and potential buyers and sellers of proprietary technology.
• Advising companies on procedures for identify any contractual or common law obligations that new hires may have to their former employers, and assisting with implementing policies covering existing and departing employees, including providing intellectual property and employment law advice when a former employee leaves with a company's trade secrets and/or copyrighted materials.
• Representing parties whose trade secrets have been misappropriated or who are accused of misappropriating trade secrets of others.