Carole E. Handler

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Carole Enid Handler is an American lawyer. She is a vice-chair at Foley & Lardner LLP in the area of intellectual property (IP) litigation. Her experience lie in the areas of trademark, copyright and antitrust laws, particularly as those laws pertain to entertainment and media industry.

Handler is the daughter of Columbia Law School professor, the late Milton Handler[1], and the mother of two daughters, Ilana and Alisa Schoenbach[2].

Carole Handler's noteworthy achievement is a case considered to be a landmark case that was won on an ironic, yet relatively simple, but critical oversight.[3][4][5][6] At issue were the sale of intellectual property rights to certain Marvel Enterprises characters that Marvel's new owners thought it bought with the company. The claim was successful because, although the purchaser of those rights had a valid signed contract with the former owners of Marvel, the actual new rights were never registered with the United States Copyright Office. Handler's discovery of that fact, and her interpretation of IP law during the court proceedings, caused the rights to revert back to Marvel, which was bought by Avi Arad and Ike Perlmutter.[7][8]


Contents

[edit] Carole Enid Handler

[edit] Academic career

Handler received her undergraduate degree from Harvard College (A.B., with honors) in history and literature. She received her law degree from the University of Pennsylvania Law School in 1975, and she then went on to achieve a master's degree in city planning from Penn, and also studied architecture at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

For the 2006-2007 academic year, Handler serves as an adjunct professor at Rutgers University Law School[9][10].

[edit] Legal career

Carole Handler has tried many entertainment, trademark, copyright, and antitrust cases in both, state and federal courts in California, New York and Pennsylvania.

Arguably Handler's most significant work includes representing Arad and Perlmutter[11][12] in its legal battle to keep the motion picture rights to one of its most lucrative characters, Spider-Man. [13][14] and protecting the right to copyrighted characters in online gaming, as well as establishing the motion picture industry's exclusive rights to control the distribution and performance of their copyrighted works in new media[15]. Handler was quoted as saying, This was won on such "unique issues that will NEVER happen again," as a result of her exposing of the weakness[16].

Handler has been working with studios to develop a legal licensing system for digital video. [17] Handler argues that the idea of Creative Commons, created by Stanford University professor Larry Lessig, is an "interesting compromise" - allowing for protection for copyrightable interests of the video itself while also acknowledging that the technology being used that causes the video to be accessed online modifies the licensing arrangement[18][19].

Aside from Handler's experience in motion picture and entertainment licensing, she has worked with IP issues dealing with energy[20], pharmaceuticals and medical devices.

Among her antitrust work, Handler has represented the National Basketball Association and several of the major motion picture studios defending them against "block booking" [21](When studios sell its films in bundles of 'all-or-nothing' packages; meaning that theaters were required to buy some of the studio's mediocre pictures along with the more salable ones).

In addition to the issue of Block Booking, Handler defends studios on the practice of "Clearance" (not allowing a film to be shown within a set radius of another theater showing the same film)[22]

Handler had been a partner at the law firms of Kaye Scholer LLP., O’Donnell & Shaeffer LLP and Thelen Reid & Priest LLP.

[edit] Honors and awards

Carole Handler was named one of the "Top 50 Women Litigators in California" by Daily Journal Extra in 2005, 2004, 2003 and 2002. In 2001[23], and was named one of the "Lawyers of the Year" by California Lawyer. She is an adjunct professor of antitrust and intellectual property law at the University of Southern California. She has also taught at UCLA Law School.

[edit] Philanthropy work

Handler has been a board member for the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra since 2000 and for Public Counsel since 1999. She was the president of the Commission for Women's Empowerment of the American Jewish Congress[24]. She is active with the California Women's Law Center and Legal Momentum, and is on the Executive Committee Antitrust Section for the Los Angeles County Bar Association.

In 1998, Handler took on the case of Holocaust rescuer (Righteous Gentile) Irene Gut Opdyke when Opdyke tried to re-gain the rights to tell the "authorized" account of her life story, which she had previously assigned in a lawful motion picture option agreement. Handler worked with the parties to reach an agreement and the case was dismissed with prejudice[25]. In an ironic twist, after the trial, all parties agreed that the promoter did "nothing wrong." Mrs. Opdyke publicly acknowledged the promoter who she sued by thanking him in her book, “In My Hands” and agreed to give him a producer credit for the eventual "authorized" motion picture about her life story.

Handler is also a member of the American Bar Association, where she co-chairs the Intellectual Property Committee of the Antitrust Section. She is also a member of the New York State Bar Association and the Philadelphia Bar Association.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Milton Handler Papers, Arthur W. Diamond Law Library - Columbia Law School
  2. ^ New York Times Obituary for Milton Handler, November 12, 1998
  3. ^ Variety, Spider-Man's legal web may finally be unraveled, Judge tying up Marvel's loose ends, By JANET SHPRINTZ. August 19, 1998
  4. ^ Comics 2 Film
  5. ^ Guardian Unlimited, Court web snares Spider-Man, April 27, 2003
  6. ^ Variety, Inside Move: Rights snares had Spidey suitors weaving, May 19, 2002, Jonathan Bing"Marvel lawyer Carole Handler found a legal loophole: The original sale to Cannon hadn't been registered with the U.S. Copyright Office, so rights reverted to Marvel"
  7. ^ Comic Wars, p.270 - "Handler's Key discovery, however, was that Marvel's original, cheap sale of the rights to (Menachem) Golan and his cousin had never been properly registered. There was no record of the 1985 agreement or the 1990 extension at the U.S. Copyright Office, and under Bankruptcy law - as she successfully argued in court - "an unperfected interest," any interest that is not registered and absolute, must be returned to the bankrupt estate. Handler felt she has exposed a stupid omission by movie studio lawyers."
  8. ^ Managing Intellectual Properties, News focus: Swinging into action, September 2004 “As Dan Raviv explains in his book Comic Wars, the issue was eventually resolved by Carole Handler, a copyright and antitrust lawyer then at O'Donnell…”
  9. ^ Rutgers Law Faculty Update
  10. ^ E-Commerce Times, Digg Users Revolt Against 'Censorship' By Erika Morphy, 05/02/07
  11. ^ Comic Wars by Dan Raviv, Broadway Books, April 2002
  12. ^ Toy Biz
  13. ^ Los Angeles Times, A Tangled Web of Deal-Making , Michael A. Hiltzik, August 29, 1998 “Spider-Man is mired in costly and complex lawsuits that form a cautionary tale about Hollywood filmmakingWord Doc”
  14. ^ Variety, SPIDER-MAN BREAKS FREE OF LEGAL WEB, March 8, 1999, Shprintz, Janet
  15. ^ Managing Intellectual Property, September 2004“When the two men behind Cannon, Menachem Golan and Yoram Globus, separated, Golan transferred the rights to 21st Century Films and secured an extension in 1990…the issue was eventually resolved by Carole Handler, a copyright and trademark lawyer…”
  16. ^ Box office venom:‘Spider-Man’ franchise a long overdue success story for Marvel, by daniel holloway / Metro New York, MAY 4, 2007
  17. ^ Patricia Jacobus, Studios look to sidestep antitrust issues As Hollywood builds new online distribution networks, antitrust issues loom as a possible spoiler, some legal experts warn, CNet News, January 16, 2001.
  18. ^ Investors Business Daily Lawyer Sees Need In Hollywood For New Digital Licensing System, BY BRIAN DEAGON, 8/23/2006
  19. ^ Hollywood Reporter Net Neutrality: At Stake, the Future of Content on the Internet, Carole Handler, August 15, 2006
  20. ^ Houston Business Journal, California crisis generates conspiracy suits, El Paso departs from standard policy to issue public rebuttal, by Monica Perin, March 2, 2001
  21. ^ Hollywood Reporter High court suggests tie-ins OK, By Brooks Boliek, March 2, 2006
  22. ^ Mercury News San Jose cinema alleges unfair competition, By Glenn Lovell and Rodney Foo
  23. ^ Intellectual Property and Trade Regulation Journal, Fall 2004
  24. ^ AJCongress Press Release
  25. ^ The Los Angeles Times, Holocaust Heroine Is Satisfied With Accord, April 12, 2000

[edit] Further reading