Brian J. McNamara is a retired partner in Foley’s Washington, D.C. office. As a member of the firm's Sports Industry Team, his legal experience included patent, trademark, and copyright protection, licensing and litigation, and the protection of trade secrets. In the area of sports law, Mr. McNamara obtained several patents on sporting goods including portable lacrosse goals that meet NCAA standards. He also filed a patent application for an Internet virtual sports league.
Mr. McNamara's technical specialties included analog and digital electrical and electronic technologies, computer hardware and software, artificial intelligence systems, and telecommunications technologies. His litigation experience involved the representation of clients in the federal district courts and before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (patent interferences, trademark oppositions and cancellation proceedings, and ex parte appeals).
Mr. McNamara's technical knowledge included analog and digital electronics, computer hardware and software, artificial intelligence systems, and telecommunications. He was a senior design engineer at Westinghouse Electric for eight years and was principal engineer in charge of systems engineering and business development at ARINC Research Corporation for six years.
Mr. McNamara has published in scientific journals and symposium proceedings as well as in legal publications, such as Electronics & Computer Patent & Copyright, published by the Patent Resources Institute. He authored a chapter titled, "Intellectual Property Due Diligence," which, until recently, was published in the treatise Drafting License Agreements by Aspen Publishers. For many years, he was also an adjunct professor of law at George Mason University, where he taught Internet Law.
In recognition of his experience, Mr. McNamara has been Peer Review Rated as AV® Preeminent™, the highest performance rating in Martindale-Hubbell's peer review rating system.
Mr. McNamara graduated from Manhattan College (B.S., electrical engineering); Johns Hopkins University (M.S., electrical engineering and M.A.S., administrative science); and the University of Maryland (J.D., with honors, 1986), where he was a member of the Moot Court Board. He is a member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, the American Intellectual Property Law Association, the District of Columbia Bar Association, and the Anne Arundel County, Maryland State and American Bar Associations.
Publications and Presentations:
- "Patenting Computer Hardware and Software," Japanese Intellectual Property Association, Washington, D.C., October 27, 2009
- "Charting The Course to a Service Provider Safe Harbor – The Veoh Cases Under The Digital Millennium Copyright Act," MD State Bar Convention, Intellectual Property Law Section Proceedings, June 2009
- "Is MySpace Really Mine? Licensing, Ownership and Infringement In WEB 2.0 – Content Licensing Approaches," Pike & Fischer Seminar, Washington, D.C., November 2008
- "Developments in Copyright Law – Adapting to Changing Technologies and Business Models," published by National Business Institute, October 2008
- "Principles of Intellectual Property Protection – Patents, Trade Secrets, Trademarks and Copyrights," University of Maryland School of Engineering – Capstone lecture, 2007 and 2008
- "Protection of Intellectual Property in Computer Hardware and Software (Patents and Copyrights)," Japanese Intellectual Property Association, October 2007