May 5, 2008 (Washington, D.C.) - Proskauer Rose LLP, an international law firm with more than 750 lawyers worldwide, is proud to announce that Jon Baumgarten, a partner in the firm's Washington, D.C. office, has been named one of the area's top copyright and trademark lawyers by Legal Times magazine.

"Jon is truly a legend. His work has set national precedent, yielded significant results for the firm's clients, and laid the groundwork for the practice of copyright law in the 21st century. We are tremendously proud of him and congratulate him on this honor," said Trevor Chaplick, co-managing partner of Proskauer's Washington, D.C. office.

Leading copyright industry executives also commended Mr. Baumgarten in the feature, calling him the "very best" and "a genius" who "understands not just copyright law but policy better than anyone," among many other accolades.

For more than 30 years, Mr. Baumgarten has been one of the country's leading copyright practitioners, anchoring Proskauer's trial and appellate teams in a number of successful, precedent-setting intellectual property cases under the Copyright Act and Digital Millennium Copyright Amendments. In addition, he has argued major cases of copyright doctrine for the U.S. Copyright Office and been instrumental in a range of other matters. Significant matters he has handled include: representing the Motion Picture Association of America in a case involving the unauthorized decryption of DVDs that paved the way for the growth of the DVD market; representing Reed Elsevier in a copyright dispute involving its LexisNexis subsidiary that involved the enforceability of "copyright by contract" and whether federal copyright law pre-empts state contract law; and representing publishers in major cases against Texaco and Kinko's that laid the ground rules for unauthorized reproduction of copyrighted works in corporate and educational settings and established several points of copyright precedent regularly relied on by the copyright community in the digital age. In recent years, Mr. Baumgarten has continued his litigation and counseling practice and also leads teams of businesspersons and technologists in the development and formulation of cross-industry technical standards and digital rights management solutions for content protection.

Prior to joining Proskauer, Mr. Baumgarten served as General Counsel of the U.S. Copyright Office and was instrumental in the creation and administrative implementation of the Copyright Act of 1976, which completely overhauled the U.S. Copyright Law and the agency's regulations and practices and in the United States' then emergent leadership in international copyright. He has served on several Bar Association committees on copyright and is past chair of several of them. In addition, he has served as a member of the National Advisory Committee to the United States Copyright Office, the International Copyright Panel of the Advisory Committee to the Department of State on International Intellectual Property, and the Ad Hoc Working Group on Adherence to the Berne Convention. He was a founding director of the American Copyright Council, the Computer Law Association, the D.C. Computer Law Forum, and Washington Area Lawyers for the Arts. He received his LL.B. from New York University School of Law and his B.A. from City College of the City University of New York.

Proskauer's Copyright Practice has a long and richly deserved reputation for its depth and sophistication. The practice has a rare combination of substantive skill, trial experience and technological know-how that is virtually unparalleled within a single firm. Proskauer's lawyers have had a first-hand role in developing the law in the courts, by the legislative process, and in drafting the regulations by which these laws are administered. As a result, the practice is often looked to by other lawyers and firms as a guiding hand in the most advanced copyright matters.