Our practice focuses on helping established private technology-based companies or creators who are frustrated by being ripped off! They may, for example, be concerned about a competitor who uses unfair tactics, an employee who leaves with copies of their files or a business partner who fails to live up to a promise. In some cases, we have represented investors and businesses regarding their obligations to perform in an investment setting. We also have experience in contentious business and partnership dissolutions and tax related litigation representing professionals in related litigation. Most of Gregory’s litigation work takes place in the federal court. However, Gregory has litigated in state court too. After first starting as a litigator and then practicing as a transactional lawyer, Gregory brings both sides of the puzzle together.

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Wednesday, August 22, 2007

Santa Monica, CA — Leading California niche law firm, the arts and technology law group®, announced today that it has opened an office in Santa Monica, California. The new office will assist and support their growing base of clients in southern California. This will be the firm’s second office in California and will work directly with the San Francisco office.

The firm has established itself as a leader in IP piracy infringement litigation and will continue to focus heavily on the creative and technology industries. The firm has litigated around the country on behalf of software, content owners, hand-held device and infrastructure companies.

The firm has also closed multimillion dollar complex information outsourcing service agreements and software license agreement with clients in managed hosting, systems on a chip, bio-tech analytical and gaming industries and plans to dedicate a large portion of their resources to expand this practice.

Commenting on their increased presence in southern California, founding attorney Gregory Rutchik said, “Our decision to open an office in Santa Monica was driven by our commitment to provide great customer service to our clients. Several clients in the video game and adult entertainment content industries expressed the need for a greater presence in the LA area. Right to publicity and right to privacy related litigation were taking up alot of our attention in southern California from the start. And our presence there will enable us to better serve our clients’ current and future needs.”

About the Firm

The arts and technology law group® is focused on infringement litigation and advising business owners craft and negotiate deals related to the flow of rights and money. Their clients are private and public companies with brands and/or business that are based on technology or creative content. The arts and technology law group® was originally formed in 1993 to address the needs of a film maker and has been committed to providing the best customer service to creators, technologists and businesses since then. More on the firm at www.thepiracylawyer.com.

Forbes on Rutchik on posting code to hack DVD’s: “Digg will have to figure out what they are,” he says. “Are they a passive conduit, or are they a facilitator for hackers? They’re in a difficult position.”

“Perhaps the greatest difference between the RIAA’s case and Viacom’s is that Viacom doesn’t want to stop YouTube from operating. If it did, says Rutchik, Viacom would have asked the courts to shut Google down to ensure that its copyrighted material was not uploaded, or in some cases slightly changed and re-uploaded after being removed. Instead, Viacom asked for damages, a “declaration that defendants’ conduct willfully infringes Plaintiffs’ copyrights,” and an injunction requiring YouTube and Google to, in essence, adopt better technology to prevent or limit their copyrighted material from uploading.” Businessweek on Rutchik on Viacom v. Google.

Our litigation practice is focused on piracy/infringement and breach of contract litigation.

Litigation is not taken lightly. It is costly, aggressive and disruptive but it is often necessary. We have represented parties in copyright, trademark, trade secret, and in some cases patent infringement matters in Federal court in various states.

We act or have acted as local counsel here in Northern California on behalf of private entity litigants from across the US, the United Kingdom, Israel and several Asian countries.

Customer Service matters to us and it should matter to you.

Negotiating: Are you a creator, technologist or business? Or all three? Gregory’s transactional practice focuses on preparing and negotiating a diverse set of agreements to commercialize, develop and distribute software and information technology. Gregory has also negotiated publishing, music and software agreements related to various formats for first time and New York Times best seller authors. My experience includes general commercial and contractual law issues, in and out licensing and distribution agreements, technology development and maintenance agreements, agreements for technology-related consulting services, telecommunications services and complex information technology outsourcing agreements. Current and former clients include public and private entities in business ranging from managed infrastructure service providers, to embedded OS and consumer products developers, to Palm software applications.

Branding: Clients have relied on us for years to help them choose a brand, search for, apply for and negotiate trademark in particular and brands in general. For more on this, read about the whats, how this works, the whys and the wherefors. “Brand,” in my opinion, is short hand for the trigger a business uses to get a target customer or partner to react to the business’ product or service offering. If your target doesn’t react to what you’re using as your branding, you might not have an effective brand. Trademarks, are legal things that result first from use of some thing - generally a mark, logo, sound, color in association with the good or service. There are many strong brands that are not good trademarks (anymore at least) and there are many trademarks that no one knows as a brand.

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the arts and technology law group (fkn/aka the arts and technology group®) was formed by Gregory Rutchik in New York City in the winter of 1993 to combine work with clients in the arts (namely film), software and information technology. Gregory’s earliest work was as a litigator. Gregory worked with the Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts in New York City representing independent songwriters, film producers and arts entities. Gregory continued his practice as an associate with Ostrolenk, Faber, Gerb and Soffen in New York City, a firm celebrating it’s 85th year anniversary with a focus on patent, trademark and copyright litigation. Gregory’s practice there focused on the learning to prosecute semi-conductor patents and trademarks, and on copyright litigation. In addition, a majority of Gregory’s time was focused on representing a filmmaker in the Federal
District Court in the Southern District of New York to prevent the infringement of her work. Rutchik successfully secured a temporary restraining order, a seizure order and
permanent injunction for my client.

In 1998, Gregory joined the Information Technology Practice Group of
Cooley Godward LLP in Palo Alto, California, to work on software and information technology clients. Gregory’s focus there was on drafting, negotiating and advising on licensing, distribution, development, spinouts and other agreements. Gregory then joined two Cooley Godward clients as assistant general counsel - noosh.com a web based
procurement entity and at Loudcloud, an infrastructure managed services company.