Ian C. Ballon

Ballon is the co-chair of his firm’s global intellectual property and technology practice group. He also is the author of the well-respected, five-volume guide to the law of the internet called E-Commerce and Internet Law: Treatise with Forms 2d edition.

He updates it annually, and the 2022 edition should just be out. “It apparently is a best-seller in the Thompson West world,” he said.

He believes the treatise gives him an advantage in litigation because the yearly updating requires him to stay current on all important cases in the field. “I see very clearly trends in the law that maybe not every litigator sees,” he said. “Seeing the trends and understanding the nuanced differences in the way the different circuits apply the law, I think, gives me a strategic advantage in developing strategy for litigation.”

One burgeoning area is artificial intelligence and machine learning. His chapter on those topics is over 130 pages long.

An important issue is where companies and others obtain the data they used to train algorithms. “I have advised and continue to advise clients on data portability and issues relating to machine learning and artificial intelligence,” he said. “The issues involve data protection and data portability.”

He is litigating what he sees as an important First Amendment issue in a trademark dispute brought by an online invitation company called Punchbowl Inc. against a politics news startup called Punchbowl News. Ballon and team won a summary judgment motion for the news organization on First Amendment grounds, and the case is now on appeal. Punchbowl Inc. v. AJ Press Inc., 21-55881 (9th Cir., filed Aug. 17, 2021).

Ballon has written a chapter for an upcoming book on art law on the topic of appropriation art. That also is the central issue in his representation of appropriation artist Richard Prince in lawsuits brought by two photographers in New York. Prince makes his art using photos found on Instagram, and the cases raise questions of transformation and fair use as well as licensing.

A ruling in the cases is pending but may be delayed for the U.S. Supreme Court to rule on a similar issue involving Andy Warhol works, he said.

An interesting lawsuit he handled recently questioned whether one Los Angeles area law firm could trigger online sponsored links to its website with searches on a competing firm’s name without violating that firm’s trademark rights. Ballon wouldn’t identify the law firms. The case settled quickly.

In addition to his publishing and law practice, Ballon is the executive director of Stanford University Law School’s Center for the Digital Economy, which puts on annual events on topics such as last year’s Digital Economy Best Practices Conference.

--Don DeBenedictis