As counsel to leading technology firms, luxury goods manufacturers, pharmaceutical companies and other IP rights owners, Covington has engaged in intellectual property policy initiatives at the local, regional and international level throughout the world. Our deep IP industry expertise combined with our long experience in public policy work make us a persuasive voice on these issues.
Our work in this area has covered a wide range of issues, including but not limited to efforts to improve national IP enforcement regimes, to modernize substantive IP laws, and to address complex and novel issues relating to the intersection between IP and competition and IP and technology standards. In the US, for example, the firm has crafted and successfully lobbied for significant reforms to copyright, trademark and patent laws and worked closely with senior government officials and legislators to ensure that China, Russia, Brazil and other important markets meet their commitments to protect and enforce US rights. Our long-standing involvement with EU institutions dates back to the first EU copyright legislation, the 1991 Software Directive, and continues to this day. We have also been called upon to regularly provide input to the Council of Europe as well as to multilateral organizations including the World Intellectual Property Organization, the World Trade Organization and the World Customs Organization.
The effectiveness of our IP policy team is further enhanced by the firm's alliance with McLarty Associates, headed by former White House Chief of Staff and Special Envoy for the Americas Thomas F. McLarty. This unique alliance gives our clients access to the combined experience and expertise of lawyers, diplomats, senior negotiators, business leaders, financiers, lobbyists, policy- and opinion-makers, and intelligence analysts to address their important international legal, regulatory and commercial issues.
Representative Matters
- For more than 15 years, representing the Business Software Alliance in major US and international efforts to modernize copyright laws in the digital age, including the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the WIPO Treaties, and the EU Software, Copyright and IPR Enforcement Directives.
- Advocating the reform of national laws in over 40 countries worldwide — most recently in China, Russia and other parts of Eastern Europe and the CIS — on the basis of the WTO TRIPS Agreement and other treaties.
- Regularly engaging with US, EU and other trade officials to combat efforts to weaken or break the IP rights of our clients through industrial policy measures and other non-tariff trade barriers, including discriminatory technical standards, government procurement preferences, compulsory licensing schemes and competition laws.
- Advocating on behalf of pharmaceutical clients with US and foreign officials to ensure protection and enforcement of patent and data exclusivity rights, including on the basis of the WTO TRIPS Agreement and Doha Public Health solution.
- Representing an alliance of leading brand owners, including Procter & Gamble, DaimlerChrysler, Gillette, Unilever and British American Tobacco, in developing a strategy to elevate counterfeiting to the top of the global political agenda.
- Regularly engaging with US trade officials on behalf of our clients’ interests in the various bilateral and regional trade negotiations in which the United States is engaged, including Free Trade Agreements with Australia, the Andean region, Central America-Dominican Republic, Chile, Korea, Thailand and Singapore.
Accolades
Covington's intellectual property attorneys have been recognized by:
- The Best Lawyers in America (2007-2013)
- Chambers USA's - America's Leading Business Lawyers (2006-2011)
- Chambers Europe (2012)
- Legal 500 US (2011)
- Legal 500 UK (2012)
- The Practical Law Company (PLC) - Which Law Firm?, Intellectual Property, Commercial Intellectual Property (2009)
- PLC - Life Sciences, Which Lawyer? - One attorney recognized for Intellectual Property (2005-2009).
- European Legal Experts (2006)
- PLC Global Counsel 2006 - Global Counsel Magazine for “The Life Sciences Industry Super League”- ranked number one in the world, 23 Covington lawyers were recommended as leaders in their fields, including seven lawyers in Europe.
- Legal 500 EMEA (IP Brussels) - “…the firm is also active domestically, and is a good choice for litigation, particularly with respect to the enforcement of IP rights in new media.” (2006).
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