Clinton H. Brannon

Clint Brannon helps clients address their legal needs in the areas of intellectual property litigation, intellectual property counseling, software licensing, and intellectual property and data rights issues in the context of government contracting.

Intellectual Property Litigation

Clint’s litigation practice includes extensive experience litigating disputes concerning intellectual property in federal district courts and the United States Court of Federal Claims, with a particular focus on the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia’s “rocket docket.” His experience encompasses all stages of patent litigation, from pre-filing investigations of infringement and validity to claim construction, jury and bench trials, and appeals to the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. Clint also supports patent litigation matters through post grant reviews (PGRs), inter partes reviews (IPRs), and ex parte reexaminations before the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

Although Clint began his legal career as a patent litigator, his litigation experience now encompasses all areas of intellectual property, including trademark, trade secret, and copyright cases, as well as software licensing disputes and related breach of contract claims.

Intellectual Property Counseling

Clint advises clients concerning all substantive areas of intellectual property, including patents, trademarks, trade secrets, data rights, technical data, computer software, and copyrights, and he regularly helps clients identify their intangible assets and implement intellectual property protection strategies.

Clint is a registered patent agent whose technical knowledge covers a broad range of subjects in the chemical, electrical, software and mechanical arts.

He has applied this knowledge in matters concerning a variety of technologies including wireless telecommunications standards, network security, medical devices, data compression, VOIP, Wi-Fi, signal processing, electrical circuits, fluid filtration devices, object detection and identification, and machine learning.

Software Licensing

Clint helps software companies and their customers draft and negotiate software license agreements and software as a service (SaaS) agreements. Due to his broad intellectual property background and understanding of software and related technologies, Clint is able to provide practical guidance to licensors as to how the terms of their license agreements will impact their ability to protect their technology and intellectual property. And, because Clint has represented licensee clients in the financial, defense, cloud computing, and manufacturing industries, he has the ability to help licensees minimize risks to their business operations resulting from licensed software.

Government Contracting

Clint advises government contractors and subcontractors on the impact that the patent and data rights clauses of the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) and Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement (DFARS) may have on their intellectual property rights. By working with clients to understand precisely what they will be delivering to the government (or the prime contractor) at the component level, he ensures that his clients understand what rights they may restrict or limit, and helps them relate those rights to the more traditional intellectual property rights found in the commercial sector.

Before beginning his legal career, Clint worked in the network capacity management group at BellSouth Telecommunications, Inc., which managed operations for circuit switched and packet switched networks employing a variety of technologies and protocols.

Clint was selected to Virginia Super Lawyers Rising Stars and Washington D.C. Super Lawyers Rising Stars (from 2014-2019). He earned both his J.D. and M.B.A. degrees from the University of Alabama. While attending law school, Clint served as a senior editor on The Alabama Law Review. He earned his Bachelor of Science degree in Industrial Engineering from Mississippi State University.