Week 8 Guest Speaker – Jennifer Kelly

Our guest this week is one of foremost litigators of video game related cases. Jennifer Kelly is at Fenwick & West in San Francisco. She will be speaking to us about imitation, originality and genres in games..

From Jennifer’s Linked In profile:

“I am a partner in the Intellectual Property and Technology Litigation Group at Fenwick & West and have been in practice for 15 years. I work primarily with companies in the technology sector, including software, gaming, social media, and Internet. My practice focuses on resolving disputes both in and out of court, with a particular emphasis on copyright, trademark, trade secret, false advertising, unfair competition, and defamation disputes.

A large part of my practice, and my passion, is working with clients in the video game/mobile app sector. I not only defend companies who are accused of infringing the copyright and other intellectual property in other’s games, but regularly counsel game clients during the product development phase, providing advice about how to design games/apps to avoid claims for infringement.

In 2008 I successfully defended video game company Capcom against claims brought by the owner of the rights in the 1979 zombie horror film Dawn of the Dead, who alleged that Capcom’s Dead Rising video game infringed its copyrights and trademarks in the film. The victory (a dismissal of all claims, with prejudice, on an initial motion to dismiss) cleared the path for Dead Rising 2, which was released in 2010.”

Jennifer’s latest case was the successful representation of Sega and Electronic Arts as defendants in a lawsuit brought by an artist who contributed content to some “sonic the Hedgehog” comic books. For more see: Fenwick & West Achieves Ninth Circuit Victory For Sega and Electronic Arts

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