CCIA Adds New Patent Counsel
5/6/2013
The Computer &
Communications Industry Association has added to its strong intellectual property
team by hiring Matthew Levy as Patent Counsel. Levy's legal
background includes working for Hogan & Hartson; Finnegan, Henderson,
Farabow, Garrett, & Dunner LLP and most recently for Cloudigy Law,
PLLC. He will handle legal, policy advocacy, and regulatory matters
related to patents and be a lead blogger for CCIA’s Patent Progress.
Matt’s background brings
unique qualifications. He has filed and prosecuted patents before the U.S.
Patent & Trademark Office and he has first-hand experience in patent
litigation, representing companies such as FedEx and Philips Electronics in
U.S. District Courts. A number of those cases involved defending clients
against patent trolls.
Before law school, Matt was
a software engineer at IBM in Lexington, KY, as part of the team that developed
and maintained Lotus Sametime, IBM’s real-time messaging and conferencing
product. He is co-inventor on U.S. Patent Application 10/745,091, which was
recently allowed by the PTO.
"We are excited to
bring Matt on board. His background as a leading legal expert on patent
law as well as a software developer brings an important skill set to our team
as we continue the push for further reform of our malfunctioning patent
system," said CCIA President & CEO Ed Black.
Matt graduated from the
Georgetown University Law Center magna cum laude with the Order of
the Coif, winning the ABA/BNA Award for Excellence in Intellectual Property. He
received a Master’s in Computer Science from the University of Kentucky, where
he won the Presidential Fellowship twice. His research at UK was in
computational complexity theory and artificial intelligence. He received a
Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from the University of Southern Maine.
Matt is still a software
developer in his spare time. He developed an app for the iPad, Federal Local
Rules, which is available on the App Store.
Matt has also been a professional blues guitarist, and he still plays in local
blues jams most weeks.