David G. Rickerby
David Rickerby heads the Technology Transactions & Licensing Group.
Mr. Rickerby was selected as one of 15 “Up and Comers” to watch in Massachusetts by Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly in 2006. He was also identified as a Massachusetts Super Lawyer Rising Star in 2005 and 2006. Mr. Rickerby was named in The Legal 500 for technology transactions.
Practice Focus
Technology Transactions & Licensing: practical strategies for high value, mission critical, unusual, and complex licensing and joint venture arrangements; solutions through creativity, perspective, and experience.
Intellectual Property: specialized expertise in copyright, trade secret and trademark law, with a focus on emerging issues; counseling on patent licensing strategies.
Business & Technology: counsel to emerging venture backed companies where the technology is critical and intellectual property is prime currency; set up initial licensing and channel strategies; handle key in-licenses; counsel to established public companies on complex high value IP centric deals and emerging issues of commercial and contractual law; experienced negotiator.
Mergers & Acquisitions: counseling on the successful transition of high value intellectual property in merger and sale scenarios; joint venture creation; post merger cross licensing.
Antitrust: distribution arrangements, patent and channel strategies implicating antitrust concerns.
Representative Engagements
- Representative public company clients have included EarthLink, Avid Technologies, Progress Software, Rational Software (now a part of International Business Machines), VERITAS Software (now a part of Symantec) and Citrix Software.
- Counsels numerous privately held companies with software and hardware solutions spanning most vertical markets.
- Leads the negotiation of full range of joint venture, strategic alliance, OEM, VAR, joint development and other technology partnering arrangements. He has led negotiation of licensing deals valued as high as $5 billion.
- Frequently represented clients in negotiations with Microsoft Corporation and IBM in licensing, development and acquisition transactions. He has also negotiated against parties including Intel, Dell, Cisco, EMC, Nortel Networks, 3Com, Enterasys, Merrill Lynch, PNC Bank, HSBC, General Dynamics, Raytheon, SAIC, Unisys, SBC, Time-Warner (AOL), Comcast, Bertelsmann, Southern New England Telephone, Houghton-Mifflin and numerous federal, state and local governmental agencies, including the US Bureau of Land Management, the US Department of Education and State of New York.
Recent Presentations
- Cornell Ventures Challenge, judge, Entrepreneurship@Cornell, The Johnson School at Cornell University, Ithaca, April 2009.
- "Before You Leap - Ways to Structure and Enforce a Contract to Avoid Litigation," panelist, Association of Corporate Counsel Conference - Northeast Chapter, Waltham, March 2009.
- “IP Basics” speaker, MIT $100K Finalists Class, Boston, April 2007.
- “Introduction to Patents,” speaker, I2V (Invention to Venture), Cornell University, Ithaca, February 2007
- IT Panel, speaker, MIT Technology & Entrepreneurship Forum, Cambridge MA, April 2006.
- “Open Source and Beyond,” speaker, LinuxWorld, Boston, April 2006.
- Cornell Business Idea Competition, judge, Johnson School at Cornell University, Ithaca, March 2006 and April 2007.
- “IP Basics,” speaker, Massachusetts Continuing Legal Education, Boston, January 2006.
- “Open Source,” speaker, MIT Venture Capital Conference, Cambridge, December 2005.
- “Open Source Indemnities,” moderator, Open Source Business Conference, Boston, December 2005.
- IT Panel, speaker, MIT Technology & Entrepreneurship Forum, Cambridge, April 2005.
Professional and Community Involvement
Mr. Rickerby is the former co-chair of the Boston Bar Association’s Computer & Internet Law Committee. He serves on the Advisory Council for the Cornell University Entrepreneurship Program.
Mr. Rickerby is a member of the Rhode Island Bar Association, the Connecticut Bar Association and the Science and Technology Law Section of the American Bar Association.