Arnold Brown
Partner – Corporate
Seyfarth Shaw LLP

 

Description of field of expertise

Arnold’s clients benefit from his track record of success as a technology entrepreneur, in-house and outside counsel, and leader of technology standards-setting organizations. Before joining Seyfarth in 2022, Arnold worked in-house at various semiconductor firms, and counseled technology clients at two prominent Silicon Valley law firms.

Arnold has represented technology clients in venture capital financings, IPOs, joint ventures, strategic investments, and mergers and acquisitions, as well as 1934 Act reporting for public company clients in more than a dozen significant financings or liquidity events.

Arnold draws on his experience as the founder—and later, seller—of a venture-backed digital music company in order to help clients navigate complex intellectual property transactions. He handles patent sales and licensing, patent pooling, and joint IP licensing transactions for companies in the semiconductor, consumer electronics, communications, and software industries.

Arnold has extensive experience counseling technology standards development organizations and companies participating in technology standards in areas of corporate governance, transactions, operations, antitrust compliance, trademark strategy, IP policies, patent pool fostering, and regulatory issues.

As a former chair of the HDMI Forum—the standards group responsible for HDMI connectivity—Arnold has a deep understanding of how technology standards are developed and applied. Throughout his career, he has represented companies in connection with more than 100 technology standards.

Arnold leads the firm’s representation of technology consortia, alliances and open source software groups.

 

What advice would you offer to new attorneys interested in your field?

Representing technology companies can be extremely rewarding. Appreciating the mission of my clients is the first thing that I strive to do. One of the ways that I was able to form relationships with technology clients was to attend technology conferences and to participate in the technical communities. There are little restrictions on who can participate in discussions and events that involve emerging technologies, and legal issues typically abound. It helps to be genuinely interested in the technology and what the problems and opportunities that come with the promise of new technologies.