Robert G. Sugarman is a nationally recognized trial lawyer who has specialized in intellectual property and First Amendment matters. He is a long-term fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers.
Mr. Sugarman has litigated significant cases in the libel, privacy, copyright, trademark, trade dress, unfair competition and false advertising areas.
He has litigated significant cases in the libel, privacy, copyright, trademark, trade dress, unfair competition and false advertising areas. Mr. Sugarman is lead counsel to the licensor of the technology used to encrypt copyrighted motion pictures on DVD in a trade secret case. In that case Mr. Sugarman recently argued the successful appeal in the California Supreme Court which held that the injunction issued in the Superior Court which prohibited the posting of the trade secret on the Web was not a violation of the defendants’ First Amendment rights. He is also representing the National Geographic Society in copyright litigations arising out of the publication of a CD-ROM set of all issues of National Geographic Magazine. Mr. Sugarman has represented a number of recording artists, record companies and music publishers including Julio Iglesias, Sony Music, Arista Records, BMG, PolyGram and Warner Chappell in music copyright litigation. He has also represented Sony Pictures in motion picture litigation, CBS in First Amendment and copyright litigation, The Daily News in libel litigation, and American Eagle Outfitters, Franklin Resources, Random House and Paco Rabanne in trademark and trade dress litigation. Mr. Sugarman has also had extensive experience in arbitration under the rules of The American Arbitration Association. In non-litigation matters, Mr. Sugarman represents a number of companies and individuals including Paco Rabanne and Carolina Herrera in intellectual property matters; and Rev. Billy Graham and the Trinity Church in publishing matters.
Mr. Sugarman founded and chaired the annual Practising Law Institute Seminar on Litigating Copyright, Trademark and Unfair Competition Cases from 1982 to 1994 and chaired the Communications and Media Law Committee of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York between 1990 and 1992.
Mr. Sugarman is the co-author of the New York chapter of the annual Fifty State Survey, published by the Libel Defense Resource Center. He authored the chapter on “Intellectual Property” in Masters of Trial Practice, published by Wiley Law Publishers, and has written numerous articles on various subjects dealing with litigation of intellectual property matters.
He has long been active in communal and philanthropic work. He is a vice-chair of the Anti-Defamation League and was honored at the 2003 annual dinner of its New York Lawyers Division. Mr. Sugarman is a past President of Hillel of New York and served as a member of the executive committee of the Lawyers Division of UJA/Federation of New York.