Covington has been devising and executing strategies to combat online piracy and fraud for over a decade on behalf of many of the world’s leading organizations, including Fortune 500 companies. Unlike other law firms or technology providers, our team combines highly skilled internet specialists and industry leading attorneys, both with extensive experience in online enforcement. By merging our technical and legal skills, and by working closely with our clients, we develop strategic, intelligent approaches to the online challenges that they face.
Our internet specialists use bespoke, proprietary crawling technologies and other sophisticated online forensic tools to efficiently and accurately identify threats online. Unlike other providers, however, our approach does not rely solely on technology: we verify each infringement to ensure accuracy and to gather further intelligence from the source. This allows us to provide more meaningful analysis of results and trends in our regular reports. And when we need to escalate cases and devise alternative enforcement strategies, our team – which spans the East and West Coasts, London and Beijing – is well placed to do so. We also call upon a worldwide network of law enforcement and counsel, as well as contacts with close to 15,000 ISPs around the world.
Our efforts in this area are not limited to addressing counterfeit and pirate products offered online, but instead encompass a broad range of online fraud including spamming, phishing, pharming and leaks of confidential information among them.
Representative Matters
- On behalf of the NFL, Covington has sent thousands of automated takedown notices to remove unauthorized streams of telecasts of games throughout recent seasons, including during Super Bowls and Pro Bowls. We have obtained and use administrative tools with major technology providers to remove streams immediately, and leveraged our long established relationships with key ISPs and sites to obtain timely compliance around the world, including in China.
- Covington works with several of the world’s major book publishers to remove unauthorized digital copies of titles from all types of sites, including Bit Torrent indexes, and blogs and forums that host one-click file host links.
- On behalf of leading technology providers, including the Business Software Alliance, Microsoft and Adobe, Covington has devised and implemented highly effective notice and take-down campaigns for several years, with an overall success rate of over 95%.
- Covington has assisted several leading financial institutions to detect phishing attacks, to identify their source, and to prevent their recurrence. As of February 2010, we had investigated over 14,000 phishing cases involving nearly 1,500 ISPs in over 90 countries, including in particular the United States, Russia and Asia. We have facilitated over 260 law enforcement cases in 25 countries.
- We have devised and implemented pre-release strategies for many of our clients. For example, three weeks before Microsoft’s release of its popular Halo2 game, the game was leaked onto the internet. Working closely with Microsoft, Covington’s internet investigators commenced round-the-clock, worldwide monitoring; utilizing our proprietary technology, forensic skills, and network of ISPs, law enforcement and counsels, we were able to significantly reduce the unauthorized distribution of the game before its official release date.
- In each of the three simultaneous worldwide internet raids conducted in the early 2000’s, Covington was contacted by leading law enforcement bodies before the raids took place and asked to assist with investigations. Covington provided pre-raid technical training on the nature of the criminal organizations, and supported the investigation post-raid.
Accolades
Covington's intellectual property attorneys and internet enforcement practice have been recognized by Legal 500, Chambers USA, European Legal Experts and PLC. Key accolades include:
- The National Law Journal - Recognized on the Intellectual Property Hot List (2012)
- Sports, Media and Entertainment Team of the Year (Intellectual Property Magazine Awards, 2010)
- Managing Intellectual Property Global Awards - Shortlisted in the pan-European category "New Media/Internet" (2010)
- Legal 500 UK - IP (2011-2012)
- Chambers Europe (2012)
- The Practical Law Company (PLC) - Which Law Firm?, Intellectual Property, Commercial Intellectual Property (2009)
- European Legal Experts (2006)
- WORLDleaders European Awards for “Best Achievement in Protecting IP on the Internet” (2005)
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