Managing Open Source Software Due Diligence in Technology M&A Transactions

Julie is a Senior Corporate Counsel at Amazon Web Service.

Mr. Wittow is a partner in the Seattle office of K&L Gates. His work focuses on intellectual property and technology transactions and counseling including the acquisition, development, marketing, licensing and distribution of mobile applications and computing devices, cloud-based software and other types of computing and data management services, other types of technologies and media content. Mr. Wittow also advises clients on electronic commerce, data privacy and data protection issues, technology litigation settlements, and complex patent licensing and patent dispositions.

Mr. Wittow’s recent experience includes preparing and negotiating patent and technology licensing and purchase agreements and product development, licensing, distribution and services (particularly cloud services) agreements for technology, online retail, media (film, music, electronic games, books and periodicals), health care, energy, financial services, engineering, transportation and telecommunications businesses; providing counseling on strategic trade secret and copyright issues; preparing and negotiating technology agreements, supervising due diligence and resolving issues for the acquisition of technology companies or assets and in conjunction with the resolution of intellectual property litigation; assisting international businesses with the legal issues and agreements associated with the creation and operation of cloud services, mobile applications, interactive websites and product and software distribution, including open source software issues; and assisting authors, filmmakers, musicians and artists with licensing and distribution of their works. Mr. Wittow is a frequent presenter and author on cloud computing, copyright and trade secret law developments and on technology and patent licensing and transaction issues.

Before focusing his practice on intellectual property, Mr. Wittow concentrated on complex energy and natural resources litigation and transactions. Mr. Wittow was lead counsel for the Municipality of Anchorage’s $120 million acquisition of a one-third working interest in the Beluga River natural gas field and represented the State of Alaska in complex oil and gas tax litigation and the Exxon Valdez oil spill litigation. Over the course of his career at K&L Gates, he also has advised clients on a broad array of legal issues from both a litigation and transactional perspective and served as a hearing officer for the Alaska State Commission for Human Rights and other State of Alaska administrative agencies.

Mr. Wittow is active in the Copyright Law Society of the United States and is a member of the CLE Board of the intellectual property law section of the American Bar Association. Mr. Wittow is an adjunct professor at the University of Washington and Seattle University law schools, where he teaches Advanced Copyright Law and Arts Legal Clinic courses.

Jeffrey R. Kaufman is an Open Source IP Attorney for Red Hat, Inc., the world’s leading provider of open source software solutions. Jeffrey also serves as an adjunct professor at the Thomas Jefferson School of Law. Previous to Red Hat, Jeffrey served as Patent Counsel at Qualcomm Incorporated providing open source counsel to the Office of the Chief Scientist and Qualcomm CDMA Technologies. Jeffrey holds multiple patents in RFID, barcoding, image processing, and printing technologies.

Heather Meeker advises technology clients on intellectual property matters.

Heather has achieved national and international recognition for her leadership in the field of intellectual property law. Drawing on her technical knowledge and experience, she approaches matters with a practical and business focus. Heather handles technology transactions and intellectual property-related aspects of mergers and acquisitions for companies in all technology sectors and for non-technology companies doing technology deals, with an emphasis on IT and software.

She received her JD, at Berkeley Law University of California in 1994.

Matt Jacobs is Senior Corporate Counsel at Black Duck Software, a consulting and software company providing end-to-end solutions for open source adoption, management, governance, and compliance. Matt oversees the worldwide legal affairs of Black Duck including managing licensing and contract negotiation, managing the company’s intellectual property portfolio and advising senior management on day-to-day legal affairs. Prior to joining Black Duck in 2009, Matt was with Bernstein Shur where he counseled companies on a variety of intellectual property matters, including open source compliance. Before that, he held in-house positions with Cabletron Systems and Standex International. Matt earned his law degree from the University of New Hampshire School of Law and holds a master’s degree in business from Plymouth State University.