-: My name is Michael Allan.
I'm a 1998 graduate of the law school.
I work at Steptoe & Johnson in Washington, DC,
and I am chair of the copyright practice
and co-chair of the trademark practice.
I represent a lot of companies in the luxury brand space
that have very valuable trademarks,
and we go after folks that infringe those trademarks.
I represent several companies,
particularly in the music space, that own,
you know, their entire value of their company is based
on the copyrights they own and their songs.
So when people infringe those songs,
we go after those folks.
I'm also involved on the trade secrets side
in defending a lot of companies
that are accused of trade secret theft.
And these are, most times, these are international cases,
competitor to competitor-type cases,
which can wind up in very substantial litigations.