About Michael Plumleigh Michael Plumleigh is a partner and head of the IP & Tech Transactions practice at M&H LLP. Mike has been advising clients on intellectual property, technology and media matters for over 30 years, and offers the perspective of having worked in-house as well as serving as outside counsel for hundreds of technology, media and life science/biotech companies. Mike has extensive experience advising early stage and established companies on complex corporate partnering, M&A, licensing and intellectual property transactions; AI data services, software license, SaaS and cloud services agreements; OEM and distribution channel agreements; product development, manufacture, supply and marketing agreements; branding, IP commercialization and portfolio management; and counseling on open source software, Internet digital media, export, and international privacy laws. Prior to joining M&H, Mike was Director of Legal Affairs at Via Licensing Corp. (part of Dolby Labs), where he was responsible for the development and negotiation of standards-based patent licensing programs (patent pools), monetizing IP on behalf of many of the world’s largest electronics manufacturers and technology innovators. Prior to Via, Mike was Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary at Critical Path, Inc., a leading provider of mobile messaging and digital media solutions and services. Before going in house, Mike was a partner and co-founder of the Technology Transactions and Privacy practice groups in the San Francisco office of Cooley LLP and a partner in the Technology Group at Brobeck Phleger & Harrison LLP. Prior to pursuing law, Mike was a professional musician, performing and touring with the Buddy Rich and Harry James Orchestras, doing shows and recording work in Los Angeles, and engagements with jazz greats Clark Terry, Mel Tormé, Joe Williams and Louie Bellson. More recently Mike has performed with Jimmy Buffett, Kix Brooks, the Zak Brown Band, Steve Miller and Bob Weir. Strategic IP planning needs to begin on day one, making sure that all IP rights utilized in the company’s products are owned or properly licensed. or regulations apart from some early FTC guidance based on existing consumer protection laws. Now, new statutes are being passed almost monthly, and cloud and web service providers need to consider multiple state laws as well as international privacy laws such as the GDPR. Privacy policies (and data use practices) need to address and comply with all of the applicable laws and need to be updated regularly as the laws change. As part of this overlapping patchwork of privacy and data security laws, there are increasing requirements for companies to implement sophisticated data security systems and protections designed to prevent data breaches, along with internal tracking, audit and other legal compliance measures. Typically, in addition to a broad compliance with law obligation, a separate data processing agreement is attached or signed along with each cloud service agreement, usually mandated by the customer’s internal policies. As SaaS and cloud services begin to incorporate AI capabilities and features into their service platforms, they need to have terms and conditions in place that cover or limit the use of AI, and similarly, customers require protections to be added to cloud services agreements to protect against potential liability from that usage. technology. Companies should have patent and IP policies for tracking internal product development to make sure that copyrights, patent rights and trademark rights that are important to the company’s current and future product strategies are appropriately documented and registered. Providers and users of cloud services and SaaS solutions are facing ever increasing and changing privacy and legal issues in cloud computing, including new legal and security requirements and the risks of storing sensitive data in the cloud. What are the main challenges facing cloud companies? When we began developing the first privacy policies for ecommerce companies over 20 years ago, they were simple disclosures of what information was being collected and how it would be used. Prior to special applicability laws such as HIPAA (patient information) and GLB (financial information), there were few statutes WWW.LAWYER-MONTHLY.COM 13
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