On April 21, 2021, Lee Brenner and Jeff Joyner were recognized by the Daily Journal among its Top Intellectual Property Lawyers, an annual special feature that honors the best lawyers in California handling intellectual property issues.
Mr. Brenner is the chair of Venable’s Entertainment and Media Litigation Group, and he was named Century City Bar Association’s 2020 Entertainment Lawyer of the Year. He has more than 20 years’ experience handling high-stakes copyright, idea submission, defamation, and First Amendment cases. As a result of the pandemic, Brenner told the Daily Journal, “I get a lot of calls arising from the increased demand for content in the entertainment world. The demand is so great that there has been an uptick in idea submission claims.”
Mr. Joyner, a partner in the firm’s Corporate Group, represents international and domestic companies in litigation, prosecutions, and transactions involving patents, trademarks, and copyrights. He was lead trial and appellate counsel in the successful defense of skincare products maker Farmacy Beauty, which faced counterfeiting claims based on Farmacy’s use of the term Eye Dew. “Arcona owned the trademark, and it believed you didn’t have to show a likelihood of confusion, you just had to offer allegedly counterfeited marks in isolation,” Joyner told the Daily Journal. “We said no, you have to view everything in totality.