Keith Kupferschmid
Senior Vice President, Intellectual Property Policy and Enforcement, SIIA
Mr. Kupferschmid is responsible for working directly with SIIA's Intellectual Property Committee to establish SIIA positions and moving the SIIA agenda on issues relating to intellectual property. He also supervises the Association's Anti-Piracy programs. Prior to joining SIIA, Mr. Kupferschmid was an attorney with the law firm of Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunner where he advised clients on all matters relating to copyright and copyright-related protection, including client counseling, opinion drafting, license negotiations, and litigation. Before that, Mr. Kupferschmid was an intellectual property attorney at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO), where he was responsible for international and legislative patent and copyright issues. During his time at the PTO, Mr. Kupferschmid worked extensively on bilateral and multilateral intellectual property issues, was responsible for formulating and advocating the Administration's policy relating to intellectual property and the Internet and represented the U.S. Government as a lead negotiator at the Diplomatic Conference on Certain Copyright and Neighboring Rights Questions that adopted the WIPO Copyright and Performances and Phonogram Treaties in December 1996.
Rene C. Albury
Counsel – Intellectual Property Enforcement, SIIA
Rene serves as Director of Corporate Anti-piracy for SIIA where she manages cases involving intellectual property enforcement. Her responsibilities include working with sources, members and outside counsel to facilitate the investigation and audit of companies accused of engaging in piracy. Prior to joining SIIA, Rene served as Director of Legal Affairs for SpectraSite Broadcast Group where she negotiated contracts with broadcast and telecommunications clients. Additionally, Rene worked for the RIAA assisting prosecutors and law enforcement in anti-piracy investigations. While at the United States Patent and Trademark Office, Rene researched issues related to trademark registration. Additionally, Rene received a B.A and M.L.A. in Radio/Television from Southern Methodist University, a J.D. from Texas Wesleyan University School of Law and an LL.M in Intellectual Property Law from George Washington University Law School. Rene is licensed to practice law in the District of Columbia and Texas.
Scott Bain
Litigation Counsel, SIIA
Mr. Bain manages and conducts SIIA litigation, including anti-piracy lawsuits on behalf of member companies in the software and publishing industries as well as other litigation for the association and its members. He also conducts various compliance, educational, and policy initiatives relating to intellectual property. Mr. Bain formerly was Partner in the IP Litigation practice of Wiley Rein LLP, and an executive at the Recording Industry Association of America. He was counsel for plaintiffs in the landmark copyright case of Lowry's Reports, Inc. v. Legg Mason, Inc., reported as "one of the largest copyright verdicts in American history," a $19.7 million award for the copying and internal distribution of financial newsletters priced at $700. He also represented the plaintiff in NTP, Inc. v. Research in Motion Ltd., where his client NTP procured a $612 million patent infringement settlement after its win at trial positioned it potentially to shut down the BlackBerry network in 2005. And he led the recording industry to an important victory establishing its right to provide cell phone ringtones under a compulsory license with music publishers, among other things. Mr. Bain is co-author of the book "Copyright Law in the Digital World: Basics, Law and Policy," published in 2005 by NLCPI in Washington, DC, and many articles on IP law. He is currently Chair of the ABA International Task Force on Piracy. Prior to his legal career, he was a software engineer at Seagate, and graduated from the University of Minnesota with a Bachelor of Electrical Engineering degree. He received his J.D. from Boalt Hall School of Law at the University of California-Berkeley in 1997, and following law school, clerked for the Honorable Randall R. Rader ofthe U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington, DC.
Tamera H. Bennett
Bennett Law Office, PC
Tamera Bennett, nicknamed by her clients as the IP quarterback, develops strategies to protect and leverage each client's intellectual property. Tamera works closely with her clients to implement customized brand management programs. Tamera's clients range from rock star to leadership coach and financial guru to custom motorcycle designer.
Tamera is a past chair of the State Bar of Texas Entertainment & Sports Law section and the Dallas Bar Association Sports & Entertainment Law section. She was named a "2006 Best Lawyer in Dallas Under 40" by D Magazine and is a former adjunct professor at Dallas Baptist University. Tamera frequently lectures to attorneys and business owners on intellectual property and entertainment law matters.
Visit Tamera's blog at www.createprotect.com for her take on all things copyright, trademark and entertainment law related.
Robert W. Clarida
Partner, Cowan, Liebowitz & Latman, P.C.
Robert W. Clarida is the partner in charge of the copyright practice at the New York firm of Cowan, Liebowitz & Latman, P.C., which was named Copyright Firm of the Year for 2008 by Managing Intellectual Property magazine. He has conducted jury trials, argued federal appeals, and served as lead litigation counsel in a number of reported federal copyright cases. He also counsels clients, including Sony Pictures, Harvard University, The New York Public Library, The Christian Science Monitor and EMI Records on non-litigious copyright matters, and has been the principal drafter of amicus curiae briefs on copyright matters in the U.S. Supreme Court and a number of Circuits, on behalf of AIPLA and other organizations including the New York City Bar Association and the Recording Industry Association of America. He has recently received professional peer recognition for the field of intellectual property in “New York Superlawyers” (2006, 2007), American Lawyer’s “Best Lawyers in the U.S.”(2006, 2007) and for the field of copyright in Legal 500 (2007). He is admitted to the New York bar, and to the federal bars of the Southern, Eastern, Northern and Western Districts of New York, the Eastern District of Michigan, and to the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the First, Second, Seventh and Ninth Circuits.
Mr. Clarida speaks and writes frequently on copyright issues, is the principal author of the annual review of copyright decisions published each year by the Journal of the Copyright Society of the USA, and co-author of the regular copyright law column in the New York Law Journal. He teaches a seminar on emerging intellectual property issues at Columbia Law School, serves as the current co-chair of the Copyright Committee of the New York State Bar Association IP Section, is the immediate past chair of the Copyright and Literary Property Law Committee of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, a past Trustee of the Copyright Society of the USA, the former chair of the AIPLA Copyright Law Committee and has been named to the AIPLA Board of Directors. He is also the author of the forthcoming Copyright Law Deskbook (BNA), and recently served as an expert reviewer for the Multistate Bar Exam in the intellectual property area.
He earned his J.D. in 1993 from Columbia University, where he was a Harlan Fiske Stone scholar, after earning a Ph.D. in music composition from SUNY Stony Brook in 1987, and receiving a Fulbright fellowship to the Musicology Institute of Gothenburg University, Sweden.
Marc S. Reisler
Partner, Holland & Knight
Marc S. Reisler is a Partner in the Business Section of Holland & Knight and is a member of the firm's Corporate and M&A Practice Group. With over 20 years of experience, Mr. Reisler's practice focuses on corporate transactions and financings, primarily for companies with significant intellectual property assets. He also advises clients on e-commerce, privacy and data security and Internet law issues. Mr. Reisler's clients include recorded music and music publishing companies, film and television studios and production companies, software developers, apparel companies, digital media companies, Web hosting providers and ISPs and health care and biotechnology companies. Mr. Reisler also represents hedge funds and commercial finance companies engaged in lending and securitization transactions. His other clients also include financial services companies (investment banks, hedge funds, broker dealers, accounting firms and insurance companies) in connection with IT transactions and outsourcing. Mr. Reisler's clients range from large multinationals to early stage companies. His representation focus includes a variety of transactions, including mergers & acquisitions, asset based lending, venture capital and strategic investments, licensing, joint-ventures, software development agreements, employment and consulting agreements and ECN and other electronic trading platform agreements.
Mr. Reisler has represented buyers and sellers in connection with a wide variety of acquisitions of music publishing companies and recorded music companies. He has also advised producers and financiers with respect to single picture and slate financings of motion pictures and securitization of income streams from musical compositions. In addition, Mr. Reisler has represented participants in a number of global joint ventures to establish a major cable network in various countries in Eastern Europe and Asia. For over 15 years, Mr. Reisler has advised clients on all aspects of Internet, digital media, e-commerce and privacy and data security law, having served as in-house counsel to one of the first mass providers of global Internet and Web-related services.
Mr. Reisler has written articles for major legal publications on a variety of topics, including mergers and acquisitions of software companies, intellectual property and other liabilities facing Internet content companies, the development of user generated content and social networking Web sites, legal issues relating to employee blogging and "incubators" of early stage companies. He has lectured at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law on film finance and is a regular speaker at industry events covering entertainment transactions and finance, the Internet, digital media, e-commerce and privacy and data security. He has appeared on NHK Japanese national television as a commentator on the growth and development of the Internet.