Overview
The software and information technology (IT) sector has been among the fastest-growing, most dynamic, and most important contributors to the 21st-century economy. Both its size and importance in our lives grow daily. Products and services built on, using, and delivering IT are part of virtually every business enterprise, from bleeding-edge start-ups to the largest companies in history, and generate legal issues, questions, and challenges of commensurate breadth and complexity. The explosion of artificial intelligence (AI) is supercharging innovation in IT.
Calfee’s commitment to the IT sector has grown commensurately. Before the "dot-com bubble," Calfee was among the earliest law firms to develop a dedicated IT Law practice comprised of attorneys with educational, technical, and work experience in the software and IT sector. Over time, that commitment has expanded through our related practices in Privacy and Data Security, IT Litigation, IP and Technology Transactions, and Technology Transfers, with regular support from Calfee attorneys in Intellectual Property, Corporate and Finance, Emerging Companies and Venture Capital, and Labor and Employment, among other areas.
We represent many software and IT businesses that are delivering new products and services and disrupting markets across healthcare, FinTech, real estate, education, construction, resource planning, control systems, engineering, logistics, distribution, search, document management, clinical trials, strategic planning and management, insurance, marketing, communications, defense, and other industries. We also represent many traditional business and industrial clients that are developing their own proprietary software and IT solutions and procuring and deploying the latest in software and IT innovations from their vendors.
Emerging technologies being created and adapted by our clients – from Generative AI to Big Data analytics to blockchain applications – fuel new business innovations and challenge the legal status quo. Our clients look to Calfee to help them identify and exploit new opportunities in the software and IT sector while managing and minimizing attendant legal risks.
Professionals
Professionals
Experience
Experience
Calfee's experience in the software and information technology industry spans the broad range of legal issues that matter most to technology-driven enterprises, including business and IT litigation, corporate transactions and financings, energy and utilities law, and intellectual property matters. Our attorneys help software and IT clients advance innovation, resolve complex disputes, protect business-critical assets, and address regulatory matters in a rapidly evolving digital marketplace.
Business Litigation
- Represented a software manufacturer that brought an arbitration before the American Arbitration Association (AAA) for breach of contract, trade secret misappropriation, tortious interference, and unjust enrichment, arising from a terminated distribution contract with a customer. This private arbitration matter involves challenging and novel damages theories related to the misappropriation of software.
IT Litigation
- Represented a construction-related software vendor against patent infringement claims, successfully invalidating a patent in federal district court and prevailing on appeal in the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.
- Represented a major real estate management software vendor in successfully enforcing rights in software against a former licensee.
- Represented a health care software vendor in cross-disputes over proprietary rights in multiple federal district court actions.
- Represented numerous businesses in connection with software license compliance audits by the Business Software Alliance, Software Information Industry Association, and individual vendors (e.g., Microsoft).
Corporate and Finance
- Served as M&A counsel to a privately owned developer of a learning management system in its sale to a West Coast enterprise management software company.
Energy and Utilities Law
- Serve as lead Ohio regulatory counsel for a publicly traded, Fortune 50 technology company in a proceeding initiated by a large, regulated utility company for approval of a data center tariff.
- Served as lead Indiana regulatory counsel for a publicly traded, Fortune 50 technology company in a proceeding initiated by a large, regulated utility company for approval of a data center tariff. Calfee achieved uncontested settlement with all parties in the matter.
Intellectual Property
- Serve as a global technology client's preferred IP counsel for non-catalyst innovations, including implementing protection strategies encompassing patent filings throughout the world. Calfee also provides general IP-related counselling for this client, a global leader in licensing and supplying proprietary petrochemical and related technologies. Specifically, Calfee’s IP team provides patent preparation and prosecution, global portfolio maintenance, freedom-to-practice assessments, formal legal opinions, and IP counselling.