Mark Lee’s practice focuses on intellectual property litigation and counseling for celebrities and celebrity estates, studios, and high technology companies. He has been heavily involved in copyright, trademark, and right of publicity counseling and litigation in many federal district courts, in the federal Second, Fifth, Sixth, Eighth, and Ninth Circuit Courts of Appeals, and in the U.S. and California Supreme Courts. Mr. Lee has:
Litigated or counseled regarding copyrights and other rights in the music of Elvis Presley, Brian Wilson, Neil Young, Steve Perry and Jackson Browne; in the literary works of authors John Steinbeck, Raymond Chandler, William Saroyan, Louis L’Amour, Helen Fielding, and Philip K. Dick; in the fictional characters Betty Boop, Barney, Rocky, Zorro, Dennis the Menace, and Emily the Strange; and in the photography of Richard Avedon and Jim Marshall.
Litigated or counseled regarding the rights of publicity and/or trademark rights of Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, Miles Davis, Barbara Streisand, Diana, Princess of Wales, Tiger Woods, Jim Brown, Sylvester Stallone, Groucho Marx, Doris Day and others.
Successfully tried to juries five copyright, trademark, or unfair competition actions.
Articulated the right of publicity/First Amendment standard adopted by the Missouri Supreme Court in Doe v. TCI Cablevision.
Coauthored the 1999 amendments to and negotiated language changes in the 2007 amendments to California’s posthumous Right of Publicity statute, Civil Code §3344.1; participated in drafting California’s anti-cybersquatting statute, Bus. & Prof. Code §17525; and participated in drafting the right of publicity statutes of Ohio and Pennsylvania.
Participated in litigation to determine the scope of permissible “deep linking” and “spidering” on the Internet.
Participated in civil and criminal proceedings in Canada, the United Kingdom, Finland, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Austria and the United States to remove pirated materials from the Internet, and to stop an internal computer software fraud ring.
Obtained dozens of seizure orders, preliminary injunctions and/or asset freezes against computer software or luxury goods pirates, Internet service providers, computer bulletin board operators, cellular phone or trunking radio cloners, and others.
Successfully arbitrated international intellectual property disputes in Sweden and the People’s Republic of China.
Argued over eighteen appeals.
Authored or coauthored two books and numerous articles on entertainment and intellectual property law.
