Thomas Patrick Lane focuses on complex business and commercial litigation, particularly in the new media and entertainment fields. He has represented traditional content owners and distributors, as well as high-technology companies and ISPs, on complex intellectual property liability issues. His experience in this area includes all aspects of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and the development, distribution, and use of technologies that push the boundaries of IP law.
Many of his cases have garnered significant national press coverage. For example, he was trial counsel in widely publicized copyright infringement cases involving Aereo, Veoh, Yahoo!, Myxer, MP3.com, Napster, and Musicmaker, and secured significant decisions for his clients. He has litigated on behalf of numerous new media and entertainment companies and represented multiple musicians and artists, both for and against record labels.
Tom's non-media representations have been as varied in type as they have been broad in exposure and complexity. He has significant experience in complex commercial matters involving unfair competition, employee raiding, misappropriation of trade secrets, breach of contract, and breach of fiduciary duty claims.
Tom's trial practice also has included cases involving trademark infringement, banking, class action, hotel and hospitality, securities fraud, and professional liability matters. He has prosecuted civil claims on behalf of the U.S. government and the city of New York, the national bank of Liechtenstein, and numerous other entities, Fortune 500 companies, and financial institutions. His international experience includes private litigation and arbitration that required the application of treaties, conventions, and foreign and domestic law on subjects such as the extraterritorial gathering of evidence, foreign sovereign immunity, recognition of foreign country judgments and foreign arbitral awards, and international conflicts of law. In sum, he has successfully litigated claims in the billions of dollars, in both domestic and international forums, at trial and on appeal, for varied and diverse clientele.
Prior to entering private practice, Tom served as a senior trial attorney in the Kings County District Attorney’s Office, where for close to five years he investigated and prosecuted multiple homicide cases and a variety of violent felonies. Before joining Winston, Tom served as deputy national chair for a large litigation firm, supervising and managing more than 100 attorneys.
Experience
Tom's individual trial experience is extraordinarily extensive, with more than 100 cases to verdict in various forums throughout the world.
One of Tom’s clients, Yahoo! Inc., has relied on his legal skills to successfully defend it in several licensing and copyright disputes. In one such case, Tom successfully defended Launch Media Inc., a Yahoo! subsidiary, in a jury trial for a case in which major record labels claimed more than $2 billion in damages for copyright infringement. The jury returned a verdict in Yahoo!’s favor in less than an hour—a verdict which was upheld by the Second Circuit. In another instance, Tom reduced a judgment against Yahoo! by millions of dollars after our firm was hired to fight a multimillion-dollar order stemming from a case in which the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers sued Yahoo! over licensing fees. He also represented Yahoo! in its opposition to a class action settlement between Google and the Author’s Guild, Inc. and the association of the American Publishers, Inc. in connection with Google’s posting of copyrighted material.
Tom has secured major victories for another of his Internet-related clients, Veoh Networks. In a series of pioneering cases, Veoh Networks, a video-sharing Web site, was found immune from copyright infringement claims under the “safe harbor” clause of the DMCA. Multiple parties sued Veoh Networks, including IO Group and Universal Music Group, for allowing third-party users to share copyrighted material on Veoh’s website. The cases have been widely regarded as precedent setting and “fundamentally altering the landscape of video usage on the Web.” In March 2013, the Ninth Circuit issued a new decision in the case again affirming the district court’s holding that Veoh was entitled to DMCA safe harbor.
Tom served as a co-author of an amicus brief in Kirtsaeng on behalf of Goodwill Industries International, Inc., in support of the winning position handed down by the United States Supreme Court in March 2013. This case arose out of a dispute relating to textbooks and has broad implications for music and publishing. By a six to three majority, the Supreme Court held that the overseas sale of a work that was also manufactured overseas under a valid contract from a U.S. copyright owner releases (or “exhausts”) the owner’s copyrights to that work. Kirtsaeng could serve as precedent for the much-debated issue of international patent exhaustion.
Beyond IP, Tom has significant experience litigating unfair competition, employee raiding, trade secrets, breach of contract, and breach of fiduciary duty claims. Most recently, he obtained summary judgment on behalf of Tradition North America in an employee raiding case brought by GFI Group, Inc., in which 23 credit brokers defected to a Tradition subsidiary. The court’s decision in this case has a tremendous impact on a companion case that the firm and Tom have been handling since 2008 before a FINRA Arbitration Panel. He has successfully represented PNY Technologies, Inc. in an ICC arbitration brought against three Samsung entities in connection with claims of Samsung’s misappropriation of confidential information and trade secrets from PNY to set up an operation to compete directly against PNY with respect to flash memory products.
Honors & Awards
Since 2013, Tom has been named an “IP Star” by Managing Intellectual Property and was recognized by The Legal 500 in 2016-2018 as a leading practitioner in the Intellectual Property: Copyright category. In the 2014–2018 issues of Lawdragon 500, Tom was included as a Leading Lawyer in America.
His December 2011 appellate victory for client Veoh Networks in a series of cases involving the DMCA was selected by Corporate Counsel as one of the “10 Biggest IP Litigation Wins of 2011.” In addition, Law360 selected the firm’s advertising, marketing, and entertainment law practice as a 2011 “Media and Entertainment Group of the Year,” citing Winston's record in cases that helped determine the legal standard for user-generated content and copyright infringement. Further, U.S. News/Best Lawyers ranked Winston as national Tier 1 for IP Litigation in its “Best Law Firms”, with one of Tom’s clients stating: “In the four companies I have been CEO of, I have dealt with many IP/Litigation firms…Winston & Strawn is the very best in this area.”
Activities
Tom devotes considerable time to numerous pro bono matters and nonprofit endeavors. He serves on the board of the National LGBT Bar Association, directs all external legal matters for the Tyler Clementi Foundation, and acts as an arbitrator for New York Civil Court.
He currently serves on Winston's Diversity Committee and also is chair of its LGBT affinity group, which provides networking opportunities and guidance on outreach and leadership initiatives for staff and attorneys. Tom is a former co-chair of the firm's New York hiring committee and New York summer program.
Tom also is a member of the firm’s Pro Bono Committee. Most recently, he and his team, including the LGBT Law and Policy Initiative at the Legal Aid Society, filed a groundbreaking lawsuit against the Port Authority Police Department (PAPD) in New York City for overzealously profiling and arresting innocent gay men in the Port Authority Bus Terminal and charging these men with “quality of life” crimes including public lewdness and exposure. The case has be
