Ronald Abramson, Partner

Ron Abramson is a litigator with many years of experience in the software, telecommunications and internet industries. His practice focuses primarily on patent, copyright, trademark, and trade secret litigation and related strategic counseling, negotiations, and transactions.

Mr. Abramson is most at home tearing apart complex technology law problems and crafting creative solutions. His matters have involved litigation over intellectual property and ownership rights in streaming media, computer languages and algorithms, telecommunications protocols and technology, and have also included brand protection, antipiracy, computer security, literary works, music, and the performing arts.

He is registered to practice before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and experienced in prosecution of applications in that office, as well as IPR, reexamination, reissue and similar administrative proceedings. He is also experienced in arbitration and ADR and has served as a commercial arbitrator and mediator for the American Arbitration Association.

Mr. Abramson has had considerable success in litigating patent infringement cases before the U.S. courts, as well as in securing numerous dismissals and preserving claims in the face of IPR petitions and trials before the United States Patent Trial and Appeal Board. He also is an experienced general commercial litigator, in technical as well as non-technical business matters.

Mr. Abramson’s representations have included Amdocs (patent litigation – telecommunication software); Hasbro (electronic games); JPMorgan Chase (patents on software for processing derivatives); Michael Philip Kaufman (patent litigation – database user interface software); Merck (pharmaceutical licensing and joint ventures); Mindscape (software publisher); Makor Issues & Rights Ltd. (patent litigation – real time traffic mapping); National League for Nursing (anticounterfeiting – standardized nursing tests); Nectar Services Corp. (trade secret litigation – telecommunications software); Nortel (IP ownership rights in major international insolvency proceedings); Pfizer (pharmaceutical licensing); Syncsort Incorporated (patent and trade secret litigation and licensing – computer software); SurferNETWORK (patent litigation – streaming media), and Viacom (securitization of copyright receivables).

Practice Areas

• Alternative Dispute Resolution
• Commercial Litigation
• Copyright and Anti-Piracy Litigation
• International Judgment Enforcement and Asset Recovery
• Litigation Funding and Alternative Fee Arrangements
• Patent Litigation
• Professional and Business Ethics

Awards & Accolades

Mr. Abramson is recognized by Super Lawyers as a top-rated intellectual property litigation attorney in New York, and has been selected as a Fellow of the Litigation Counsel of America.

Credentials

Education

• Rutgers University School of Law (J.D., High Honors, 1976); Law Review: Rutgers Law Journal (Notes & Comments Editor 1975–1976)
• Massachusetts Institute of Technology (B.S., Chemistry, 1970)

Bar Admissions

• New York
• New Jersey
• U.S. Patent and Trademark Office
• U.S. Supreme Court
• U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit
• U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
• U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York
• U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York
• U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey

Professional Affiliations

• Chair, 1998–2001, Committee on Patent Law of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York
• Chair, 1991–1994, Committee on Computer Law of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York
• Member, Association of the Bar of the City of New York
• Member, Committee on Intellectual Property, U.S. Council for International Business

News & Publications

Publications

• “Applicability to Civil Fraud of Civil Seizure Remedies Available under Copyright, Trademark, and Trade Secret Law,” April 1996
• “Products Liability for Software and Data,” April 1993
• “Trade Secret Protection for Computer Software: Procedures for Protection; recent Decisions on its Scope,” July 1990
• “Reverse Engineering and Intellectual Property Law,” March, 1989

Media

• “An Inventor’s Court Win Over Microsoft Took Years—at What Cost?” Bloomberg Law, 7/29/22
• “Fed. Circ. Upholds Inventor’s $7M Win Against Microsoft,” Law360, 5/20/22
• “Netflix, Hulu, Disney Hit With Video Streaming Patent Suits,” Law360, 10/19/21
• “Microsoft Hit With $7M Verdict For Infringing Database Patent,” Law360, 2/18/20
• “Fed. Circ. Rules PTAB Wrongly Axed Streaming Patent,” Law360, 8/26/19
• “Industry Reaction to WesternGeco LLC v. ION GeoPhysical,” IP Watchdog, 6/22/18
• “Leap Backwards? The SAS decision was an unfortunate misstep on the part of the Supreme Court of the US,” Intellectual Property Magazine, 6/19/18
• “Failure To Name Interested Parties Sinks PTAB Challenge,” Law360, 2/28/18
• “Part Of Map Patent Survives Google Challenge At PTAB,” Law360, 2/13/18
• “Quick Alice Wins May Be Tougher After Fed. Circ. Ruling,” Law360, 2/13/18
• “Supreme Court rules: Offensive trademarks must be allowed,” Ars Technica, June 19, 2017
• Lawyers Weigh In On High Court’s Offensive-TM Ruling,” Law360, 6/19/17
• “US Ends Post-Sale Patent Rights,” Intellectual Property Watch, 6/8/17
• “SCOTUS limits patent exhaustion,” IP Pro Patents, 5/31/17
• “Lexmark: good for consumers, bad for manufacturers,” Intellectual Property Magazine, 5/31/17
• “Lawyers react to TC Heartland v Kraft Foods,” IP Pro Patents, 5/23/17
• “5 Recent Fed. Circ. Rulings IP Attys Need to Know,” Law360, 4/7/17
• “Reaction: SCOTUS’ Varsity ruling will ‘haunt the courts,’” Intellectual Property Magazine, 3/23/17
• “U.S. Supreme Court Backs Copyrights for Cheerleading Uniforms,” Bloomberg BNA, 3/23/17
• “Patent laches defence reduced in SCA Hygiene,” Intellectual Property Magazine, 3/22/17
• “Supreme Court Eliminates Delay Defense In Patent Cases,” Forbes, 3/21/2017
• SCOTUS overturns CAFC Promega verdict in US exports case,” Intellectual Property Magazine, 2/23/17
• “Life v Promega reaction: SCOTUS raises more questions,” Life Sciences Intellectual Property Review, 2/23/17
• “Life Tech v Promega brings curbs and uncertainty, say experts,” IPPRO Patents, 2/23/17
• “Google, Waze Hit With IP Suit Over Traffic Navigation Tech,” Law360, 2/22/16
• “If You Can Copyright an API, What Else Can You Copyright,” Wired, 5/15/12
• “In Oracle v. Google, Judge Holds Fate of Java APIs,” Wired, 5/12/12
• “Patentability of Computer-Related Inventions: ‘Signature’ Decision Imposes Limits,” New York Law Journal, 9/23/96
• “PTO Supports Software Inventions, April 1996
• “Protecting Privilege in E-Mail Systems,” Legal Times, 8/15/1994
• “Bulletproof Your Software Contracts,” Datamation, 12/1/91
• “Feist Decision is Far-Reaching,” 8 Computer Law Strategist, May 1991
• “Why Lotus-Paperback Uses the Wrong Test and What the New Software Protection Legislation Should Look Like,” 7 The Computer Lawyer 6, August 1990
• “Look and Feel of Computer Software: What the Controversy is About,” Case and Comment, January 1990