James Gatto created and is the leader of the firm's Social Media, Entertainment and Technology team, leader of the Virtual Worlds and Video Games team and co-leader of the Open Source team. He leverages his unique combination of over 25 years of IP experience, business insights and attention to technology trends to help companies develop IP and other legal strategies that are aligned with their business objectives. His practice focuses on all aspects of intellectual property, internet and technology law, including patent, trademark, copyright, trade secret and open source. His areas of technical focus include computer software, social media, video games, social networks, virtual worlds, mirror worlds, augmented reality, user-generated content, location-based services, business methods, Internet and e-commerce technology, media, financial services, bioinformatics, personalized medicine, optics, and wired and wireless telecommunications.
He has extensive experience advising internet and social media companies on business and legal strategies relating to virtual goods and virtual currency, handling terms of service and end user license agreements, (e.g. for online games, video games, virtual worlds and mirror worlds), developing DMCA policies, handling DMCA enforcement, privacy and COPPA policies and much more.
Mr. Gatto has been in the intellectual property field since 1984, when he started as a Patent Examiner while attending Georgetown University Law School at night. Prior to joining our firm, Mr. Gatto headed the local IP practice for Mintz Levin's Reston and Washington offices, and was co-chair of the firm-wide IP Section. Prior to that, he co-founded and co-headed the National Patent Practice and Northern Virginia Technology Practice for Hunton & Williams, the then largest Virginia-based law firm.
Mr. Gatto is frequently invited to speak at leading business and legal conferences in the U.S. and internationally. He is a regular contributor to VirtualWorldLaw.com, Pillsbury's blog that addresses business and legal issues that affect social media applications, technologies and business models. He has also appeared as a featured guest on Bloomberg television and the Fox Business Network, and has been quoted in popular internet news sites, such as CNN.com.