Gary Rinkerman

Partner | Litigation

About

Gary Rinkerman is a highly experienced intellectual property attorney whose decades of experience include a position as in-house attorney to a Fortune 10 company, U.S. government service as a first chair litigator for the U.S. International Trade Commission’s Section 337 investigations group, and, in private practice, a sought after counselor who works on intellectual property transactions, best practices, clearances, litigation, and dispute resolution. His clients have ranged from top international electronics, entertainment, and retail distribution companies to manufacturers of fashion apparel and footwear.

  • In addition to proceedings in the courts and in arbitration, Gary litigates in the U.S. International Trade Commission (where he formerly served as a Senior Investigative Attorney) and at the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board. Gary is also an Honorary Professor at Queen Mary University in London where he teaches the full range of U.S. intellectual property law and transactions. He is also a Senior Fellow at the Center for Assurance Research and Engineering (CARE) a research center focusing on cybersecurity, housed in the College of Engineering and Computing, George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. At CARE, Gary focuses on artificial intelligence and US intellectual property rights. Gary is also a Member of the Board of The Cedar Creek Battlefield Foundation. As a Board Member and executive he has worked for decades to preserve and curate historical lands and assets in Viriginia’s Shenandoah Valley associated with the 1864 Battle of Cedar Creek.

    Manufacturing & Research

    Gary has worked with a range major and start-up manufacturers of specialized and commodity products, including chemicals, software, and communications equipment. In that role he has worked closely with his clients to develop, monitor, and update processes to generate, protect, and exploit intellectual property assets, including trade secrets, copyrights, patents, trademarks, and trade dress. Among the many tasks he routinely performs is negotiating and drafting agreements, providing clearance opinions for new and developing products, and working on enforcement and defense against intellectual property claims.

    Electronics, Software & Digital Media

    As co-founder of Computer Law Reporter Gary has been involved in the early phases of the modern software and consumer computer product industries and has continued to work deeply in the electronics, software and digital media industries, including their intersections in communications technologies, internal business operations, advertising, film and music. In this capacity, Gary has represented hospitality service providers, video game developers, software developers, film producers, artists, and distribution companies, ranging from advertising and marketing content, as well as games, documentaries and feature films, to exclusive music recording offered by one of the world’s largest a “big box” retail companies.

    Product Design, Trademark, Trade Dress & Content Clearances

    Gary routinely provides counsel on product development and provides clearance opinions in a range of industries, including apparel, footwear, accessories, and other consumer products. In that capacity, he works with large-scale manufacturers and distributors to develop and launch new products into competitive, and sometimes litigious, markets. He also provides counseling and clearances with regard to trade marks, trade dress, rights of publicity, rights regarding associations and endorsements, and rights against unfair competition. In addition to counseling and opinions on traditional type trademarks, Gary has also provided counseling and opinion work on sensory trademarks, including music marks and “audio brand signatures.”

    Internet, Software As A Service, New Media & Artificial Intelligence

    Site use terms, software-related development and service agreements, social media campaigns, and enforcement against and defense of web content are within the range of areas in which Gary works. In the course of that work Gary has negotiated and drafted agreements and worked on content-related disputes for a range of clients, including a large-scale entertainment, casino, and hotel business and a major distributor of consumer products. Gary has also taught, published articles on, and represented clients regarding the development and use of Artificial Intelligence systems and tools and the intellectual property issues associated with them.

    Advertising, Merchandising & Celebrity Brand Involvement

    A key part of Gary’s work on commercialization of new and established brands is the licensing and exploitation of intellectual property in the context of advertising, marketing, endorsement, and joint commercial ventures with other brands or celebrities. Among the areas in which Gary has worked is celebrity endorsement or participation in fashion, video game, and beverage businesses as well as merchandizing programs and products tied into motion picture and other entertainment properties.

    Litigation & Dispute Resolution

    Gary has worked on and directed intellectual property litigation in the judiciary as well as at the U.S. International Trade Commission and the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board. His works has ranges from pre-litigation counseling and strategies to trial and appeal work. He has worked on landmark cases involving, for example, protection of software and communications technologies as well as merchandizing rights in film and other entertainment properties.


Practices

  • Intellectual Property Litigation

  • IP Litigation and Enforcement

  • IP Transactions and Licensing

Admissions

  • Washington, D.C.


Education

  • Georgetown University Law Center

  • Rutgers University, BA, summa cum laude

Law Firm Experience

  • FisherBroyles, LLP

  • Faegre, Drinker Biddle & Reath, LLP


Corporate and Government Experience

  • E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Co., Inhouse Counsel, General Legal, Petrochemicals & Engineering Division

  • U.S. International Trade Commission, Senior Investigative Attorney – Section 337 IP Investigations

Presentations and Teaching Experience

  • Honorary Professor – U.S. IP Law, Transactions and Litigation – Queen Mary University of London School of Law.

  • Regularly teaches U.S. IP law, including trademark, copyright, patent, rights of publicity, unfair competition, IP contracts and transactions, and Section 337 practice and procedure, for such institutions as Queen Mary University of London School of Law (“Queen Mary”) and George Mason University’s Technology Management Advanced MBA Program (“GMU”). Also serves as an Adjunct Professor at New York University; taught a course on IP rights and transactions with regard to “Big Data” and analytics.

  • Regularly lectures for the European Intellectual Property Institutes Network (“EIPIN”), and for other academic and industry organizations.