Daniel Ilan is counsel based in the New York office.
Mr. Ilan's practice focuses on intellectual property (IP) law. He regularly counsels global clients on diverse issues relating to protection and exploitation of IP assets. Mr. Ilan has particular expertise in IP and technology transactions, including IP licensing, IP acquisitions and sales, IP settlement agreements, R&D agreements and other strategic collaborations. Mr. Ilan has extensive experience in IP issues arising in mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, spin-offs, public offerings, IP financing and collateralization and bankruptcy. He also has extensive experience counseling clients on technology standardization and related IP contribution and licensing. His diverse industry experience includes software and IT, telecommunications and the Internet, arts, media and entertainment, pharmaceuticals and life sciences, medical equipment, financial services, consumer goods and fashion.
Mr. Ilan has been the firm’s lead IP counsel in its representation of Nortel Networks, including in Nortel’s unprecedented $4.5 billion auction sale of more than 6,000 patents to a consortium that included Apple and Microsoft, the largest stand-alone patent sale in history. The Nortel sale has been described as “the tipping point for perceptions of intellectual property” by
IAM magazine and named a “Deal of the Year” by
The Deal,
International Financial Law Review and
Managing IP. Mr. Ilan also led the IP representation of Nortel Networks Inc. in its recent groundbreaking sale of IP addresses to Microsoft, as well as on other IP matters relating to Nortel’s ongoing bankruptcy, including its highly complicated asset sales, such as the divestitures of its 3G and 4G wireless businesses, Enterprise Solutions Business and optical and Ethernet business. The Nortel asset sales, collectively, were named
Investment Dealer’s Digest’s Telecom Deal of 2009.
Recently, Mr. Ilan also represented Google and Motorola Mobility in the pending $2.35 billion sale of the Motorola Home business to ARRIS Group, Inc., Warburg Pincus in its acquisition of the Endurance International Group, and subsequently Endurance in its acquisitions of HostGator and the websites business of Intuit Corporation, the Home Depot in its acquisition of Redbeacon, a home services marketplace web company and Italian food company Barilla in connection with its sponsorship of the concert by tenor Andrea Bocelli at Central Park’s Great Lawn on September 15, 2011. Mr. Ilan also represented Hewlett-Packard in its $12.8 billion acquisition of Electronic Data Systems Corporation (EDS), hailed as one of the top ten business deals of 2009 by
TIME magazine; Ricoh Company in its formation of a joint venture, Infoprint Solutions Company, to purchase the printing systems division of IBM, as well as related licensing issues; Barclays Capital in its 2008 acquisition of Lehman Brothers’ North American investment banking and capital markets business, which won
International Financial Law Review’s Americas M&A Deal of the Year; and GlaxoSmithKline in its acquisitions of Stiefel Laboratories, Genelabs Technologies and Reliant Pharmaceuticals.
Mr. Ilan regularly writes and speaks on diverse IP matters. He recently spoke at the Intellectual Property Law Institute 2012, the American Conference Institute’s 16th Advance Forum on Life Sciences Conference, the Fordham IP Conference, the City Bar of New York and the American Intellectual Property Law Association’s Spring Meeting. He also recently co-authored “Reselling Resale Royalties to America – A Path Forward for the Equality for Visual Artists Act?” (Entertainment, Arts and Sports Law Journal, Fall/Winter 2012, with Megan Prunella), “Congress Makes Substantial Changes to Patent Law with the America Invents Act” (
Intellectual Property & Technology Law Journal, December 2011, Feature Article) and "European Antitrust and Patent Acquisitions: Trolls in the Patent Thickets" (
Competition Law International, August 2012, with Maurits Dolmans) and authored “Trademark Licensing in M&A Deals: Some Strategic Considerations for Sellers and Buyers” (
The Licensing Journal, September 2009).
Mr. Ilan was recently profiled in
The Deal Magazine's special issue on “Movers and Shakers” and corporate philanthropy (December 2010). The article reported on how Mr. Ilan has incorporated his love of the arts into his professional life by representing such pro bono clients as the Cunningham Dance Foundation and kNow Productions (production, distribution and licensing of documentary films, one of which won the prestigious Peabody Award and was nominated for three Emmy Awards).
Mr. Ilan joined the firm in 2000 and became counsel in 2010. From 2000 to 2005, he was resident in the Brussels office and from 2005 to 2006, he was resident in the Paris office.
Mr. Ilan is a member of the Bar in New York and the Israel Bar and is also a solicitor of the Senior Courts of England and Wales. His native language is Hebrew. He is also fluent in English and is proficient in Spanish and French.