Ian C. Ballon
Encyclopedia
Ian Ballon is an Internet
and intellectual property
litigator, author of books on Internet law and Executive Director of Stanford University Law School’s Center for E-Commerce. He is the author of the 4-volume legal treatise
, E-Commerce and Internet Law: Treatise with Forms 2d edition, the leading legal reference book on Internet law, which was first published in 2000. A second edition was published in 2008 and is updated annually.
He is also an intellectual property litigator with Greenberg Traurig LLP, a firm of approximately 1800 lawyers.
Mr. Ballon grew up in Montreal
, Quebec
, Canada
, and has been practicing in the area of Internet law since the early-to-mid-1990s. He gave a speech on Internet law at the 1995 ABA Annual Meeting in Chicago
and was talked into converting the outline he prepared for that speech into a full book by Ray Ocampo, then the general counsel of Oracle Corporation
. The book was eventually published in December 2000 as a three volume set covering copyright
, patent
, trademark
, trade secret
and other intellectual property laws, licensing, litigation, privacy
, security
, secondary liability
, jurisdiction
, criminal law
s and obscenity
and child pornography
, all from a practical, business-oriented perspective. The treatise grew to four volumes and eventually a second edition was released in 2008. The treatise has been cited as authority by state and federal courts.
Ian Ballon was first admitted to practice in 1986 (in Maryland
) and is also admitted to practice in California
(admitted in 1989) and the District of Columbia (in 1988). He started practicing law in the DC area and moved to California in 1989, just days before the Loma Prieta earthquake
. Since 2000, he has worked out of offices in both Silicon Valley
and Los Angeles
, focusing in particular on technology
and entertainment industry clients. His clients have included eBay, Inc., Hewlett-Packard
, 20th Century FOX Film Corporation, Sony Pictures Entertainment
, EMI Records
, CaféPress, the McClatchy Company newspaper chain and MySpace
.
As a litigator, Ballon has helped shape the development of internet law. He was recognized by the Los Angeles and San Francisco Daily Journal in 2009 for obtaining the third largest plaintiff's verdict in California in 2008 in MySpace, Inc. v. Wallace in a judgment of over $230,000,000 against “King of Spam” Sanford Wallace
.
Ian Ballon was also named one of the top 100 lawyers in California in late 2008 and one of the Top 75 intellectual property litigators in California in 2009 by the Los Angeles and San Francisco Daily Journal. Mr. Ballon previously has been recognized as one of the top new media
lawyers in the United States
by CyberEsq. magazine, one of the 100 most influential lawyers in California by California Law Business, one of the top lawyers in L.A. by the Los Angeles Business Journal
, one of the top 50 IP Litigators in California and one of the top 25 copyright, trademark and patent lawyers in California by The Daily Journal. He is listed in Legal 500 U.S., The Best Lawyers in America in the areas of intellectual property and information technology
and Chambers and Partners USA Guide in the areas of privacy and data security
and IT and outsourcing
.
Mr. Ballon also serves as Executive Director of Stanford University Law School’s Center for E-Commerce, which hosts an annual E-Commerce Best Practices Conference every June at the law school
, as well as hosting other periodic programs of interest to Internet lawyers. He previously served as an Adviser to the American Law Institute
's Intellectual Property: Principles Governing Jurisdiction, Choice of Law, and Judgments in Transactional Disputes (ALI Principles of the Law 2007). He is also a frequent speaker at Internet and intellectual property conferences and has been quoted on these topics in publications such as the New York Times and Wall Street Journal.
Ballon’s other books include The Complete State Law Security Breach Notification Handbook (first published in 2009) and The Complete CAN-SPAM Act Practice Guide (first published in 2008).
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
and intellectual property
Intellectual property
Intellectual property is a term referring to a number of distinct types of creations of the mind for which a set of exclusive rights are recognized—and the corresponding fields of law...
litigator, author of books on Internet law and Executive Director of Stanford University Law School’s Center for E-Commerce. He is the author of the 4-volume legal treatise
Legal treatise
A legal treatise is a scholarly legal publication containing all the law relating to a particular area, such as criminal law or trusts and estates...
, E-Commerce and Internet Law: Treatise with Forms 2d edition, the leading legal reference book on Internet law, which was first published in 2000. A second edition was published in 2008 and is updated annually.
He is also an intellectual property litigator with Greenberg Traurig LLP, a firm of approximately 1800 lawyers.
Mr. Ballon grew up in Montreal
Montreal
Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...
, Quebec
Quebec
Quebec or is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking population and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level....
, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, and has been practicing in the area of Internet law since the early-to-mid-1990s. He gave a speech on Internet law at the 1995 ABA Annual Meeting in Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
and was talked into converting the outline he prepared for that speech into a full book by Ray Ocampo, then the general counsel of Oracle Corporation
Oracle Corporation
Oracle Corporation is an American multinational computer technology corporation that specializes in developing and marketing hardware systems and enterprise software products – particularly database management systems...
. The book was eventually published in December 2000 as a three volume set covering copyright
Copyright
Copyright is a legal concept, enacted by most governments, giving the creator of an original work exclusive rights to it, usually for a limited time...
, patent
Patent
A patent is a form of intellectual property. It consists of a set of exclusive rights granted by a sovereign state to an inventor or their assignee for a limited period of time in exchange for the public disclosure of an invention....
, trademark
Trademark
A trademark, trade mark, or trade-mark is a distinctive sign or indicator used by an individual, business organization, or other legal entity to identify that the products or services to consumers with which the trademark appears originate from a unique source, and to distinguish its products or...
, trade secret
Trade secret
A trade secret is a formula, practice, process, design, instrument, pattern, or compilation of information which is not generally known or reasonably ascertainable, by which a business can obtain an economic advantage over competitors or customers...
and other intellectual property laws, licensing, litigation, privacy
Privacy
Privacy is the ability of an individual or group to seclude themselves or information about themselves and thereby reveal themselves selectively...
, security
Security
Security is the degree of protection against danger, damage, loss, and crime. Security as a form of protection are structures and processes that provide or improve security as a condition. The Institute for Security and Open Methodologies in the OSSTMM 3 defines security as "a form of protection...
, secondary liability
Secondary liability
Secondary liability, or indirect infringement, arises when a party materially contributes to, facilitates, induces, or is otherwise responsible for directly infringing acts carried out by another party. The US has statutorily codified secondary liability rules for trademarks and patents; however,...
, jurisdiction
Jurisdiction
Jurisdiction is the practical authority granted to a formally constituted legal body or to a political leader to deal with and make pronouncements on legal matters and, by implication, to administer justice within a defined area of responsibility...
, criminal law
Criminal law
Criminal law, is the body of law that relates to crime. It might be defined as the body of rules that defines conduct that is not allowed because it is held to threaten, harm or endanger the safety and welfare of people, and that sets out the punishment to be imposed on people who do not obey...
s and obscenity
Obscenity
An obscenity is any statement or act which strongly offends the prevalent morality of the time, is a profanity, or is otherwise taboo, indecent, abhorrent, or disgusting, or is especially inauspicious...
and child pornography
Child pornography
Child pornography refers to images or films and, in some cases, writings depicting sexually explicit activities involving a child...
, all from a practical, business-oriented perspective. The treatise grew to four volumes and eventually a second edition was released in 2008. The treatise has been cited as authority by state and federal courts.
Ian Ballon was first admitted to practice in 1986 (in Maryland
Maryland
Maryland is a U.S. state located in the Mid Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware to its east...
) and is also admitted to practice in California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
(admitted in 1989) and the District of Columbia (in 1988). He started practicing law in the DC area and moved to California in 1989, just days before the Loma Prieta earthquake
Loma Prieta earthquake
The Loma Prieta earthquake, also known as the Quake of '89 and the World Series Earthquake, was a major earthquake that struck the San Francisco Bay Area of California on October 17, 1989, at 5:04 p.m. local time...
. Since 2000, he has worked out of offices in both Silicon Valley
Silicon Valley
Silicon Valley is a term which refers to the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area in Northern California in the United States. The region is home to many of the world's largest technology corporations...
and Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
, focusing in particular on technology
Technology
Technology is the making, usage, and knowledge of tools, machines, techniques, crafts, systems or methods of organization in order to solve a problem or perform a specific function. It can also refer to the collection of such tools, machinery, and procedures. The word technology comes ;...
and entertainment industry clients. His clients have included eBay, Inc., Hewlett-Packard
Hewlett-Packard
Hewlett-Packard Company or HP is an American multinational information technology corporation headquartered in Palo Alto, California, USA that provides products, technologies, softwares, solutions and services to consumers, small- and medium-sized businesses and large enterprises, including...
, 20th Century FOX Film Corporation, Sony Pictures Entertainment
Sony Pictures Entertainment
Sony Pictures Entertainment, Inc. is the television and film production/distribution unit of Japanese multinational technology and media conglomerate Sony...
, EMI Records
EMI Records
EMI Records is the flagship record label founded by the EMI company in 1972 and launched in January 1973 as the successor to its Columbia label. The EMI label was launched worldwide...
, CaféPress, the McClatchy Company newspaper chain and MySpace
MySpace
Myspace is a social networking service owned by Specific Media LLC and pop star Justin Timberlake. Myspace launched in August 2003 and is headquartered in Beverly Hills, California. In August 2011, Myspace had 33.1 million unique U.S. visitors....
.
As a litigator, Ballon has helped shape the development of internet law. He was recognized by the Los Angeles and San Francisco Daily Journal in 2009 for obtaining the third largest plaintiff's verdict in California in 2008 in MySpace, Inc. v. Wallace in a judgment of over $230,000,000 against “King of Spam” Sanford Wallace
Sanford Wallace
Sanford "Spamford" Wallace came to notoriety in 1997, promoting himself as the original Spam King. Wallace's prolific spamming has resulted in encounters with the United States government, anti-spam activists, and large corporations such as Facebook and MySpace...
.
Ian Ballon was also named one of the top 100 lawyers in California in late 2008 and one of the Top 75 intellectual property litigators in California in 2009 by the Los Angeles and San Francisco Daily Journal. Mr. Ballon previously has been recognized as one of the top new media
New media
New media is a broad term in media studies that emerged in the latter part of the 20th century. For example, new media holds out a possibility of on-demand access to content any time, anywhere, on any digital device, as well as interactive user feedback, creative participation and community...
lawyers in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
by CyberEsq. magazine, one of the 100 most influential lawyers in California by California Law Business, one of the top lawyers in L.A. by the Los Angeles Business Journal
Los Angeles Business Journal
The Los Angeles Business Journal, established c. 1979, is a weekly newspaper in Los Angeles, California, which covers general business news. According to the journal's website, it has over 12,000 online subscribers, and a weekly print circulation of 30,000...
, one of the top 50 IP Litigators in California and one of the top 25 copyright, trademark and patent lawyers in California by The Daily Journal. He is listed in Legal 500 U.S., The Best Lawyers in America in the areas of intellectual property and information technology
Information technology
Information technology is the acquisition, processing, storage and dissemination of vocal, pictorial, textual and numerical information by a microelectronics-based combination of computing and telecommunications...
and Chambers and Partners USA Guide in the areas of privacy and data security
Data security
Data security is the means of ensuring that data is kept safe from corruption and that access to it is suitably controlled. Thus data security helps to ensure privacy. It also helps in protecting personal data. Data security is part of the larger practice of Information security.- Disk Encryption...
and IT and outsourcing
Outsourcing
Outsourcing is the process of contracting a business function to someone else.-Overview:The term outsourcing is used inconsistently but usually involves the contracting out of a business function - commonly one previously performed in-house - to an external provider...
.
Mr. Ballon also serves as Executive Director of Stanford University Law School’s Center for E-Commerce, which hosts an annual E-Commerce Best Practices Conference every June at the law school
Law school
A law school is an institution specializing in legal education.- Law degrees :- Canada :...
, as well as hosting other periodic programs of interest to Internet lawyers. He previously served as an Adviser to the American Law Institute
American Law Institute
The American Law Institute was established in 1923 to promote the clarification and simplification of American common law and its adaptation to changing social needs. The ALI drafts, approves, and publishes Restatements of the Law, Principles of the Law, model codes, and other proposals for law...
's Intellectual Property: Principles Governing Jurisdiction, Choice of Law, and Judgments in Transactional Disputes (ALI Principles of the Law 2007). He is also a frequent speaker at Internet and intellectual property conferences and has been quoted on these topics in publications such as the New York Times and Wall Street Journal.
Ballon’s other books include The Complete State Law Security Breach Notification Handbook (first published in 2009) and The Complete CAN-SPAM Act Practice Guide (first published in 2008).