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Brandon Palmen

Brandon Palmen assists clients in a wide range of industries with their commercial and intellectual property transactions. He drafts and negotiates agreements with key customers, suppliers, and technology development partners, complex data and intellectual property license agreements, and agreements associated with mergers, acquisitions, investments, and joint ventures where technology and intellectual property rights are key assets or concerns. He regularly represents clients whose relevant products and services include artificial intelligence solutions, sensors, software, and services for connected and automated vehicles, virtual and augmented reality devices and services, cloud infrastructure and services, advertising platforms and services, social media platforms, semiconductors, digital health products, financial tools and software, online education services, mobile applications, and other electronics, software, cloud services, and digital content. Brandon also regularly advises clients on open source strategy and compliance and performs IP and commercial due diligence.

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Technology companies are grappling with unprecedented changes that promise to accelerate exponentially in the challenging period ahead. We invite you to join Covington experts and invited presenters from around the world to explore the key issues faced by businesses developing or deploying cutting-edge technologies. These highly concentrated sessions are packed with immediately actionable advice. Each day closes with an industry spotlight, providing insights from leading tech authorities. This year’s industry spotlights will feature:

  • Dennis Garcia, Assistant General Counsel, Microsoft – Emerging Trends for AI in Latin America
  • Janel Thamkul, Deputy General Counsel, Anthropic – The Frontier Model Landscape
  • Eric Sprink, CEO, Coastal Community Bank – Developments in the Regulatory Landscape

Continue Reading Covington’s Fifth Annual Technology Forum – Looking Ahead: New Legal Frontiers for the Tech Industry

Last week, Covington dispatched a team of connected and automated vehicles (“CAV”) practitioners to participate in the Mcity Congress, in Ann Arbor, Michigan.  Lawyers from our Technology and IP Transactions, Public Policy, Product Safety and Liability, and Insurance practice groups presented a series of observations and insights around mitigating liability in the CAV industry, and we saw first-hand what’s happening at the cutting edge of CAV technology.
Continue Reading IoT Update: Who’s at the Wheel? Connected and Automated Vehicles Stakeholders Weigh In from the Mcity Congress

MongoDB, the developer of a popular document-oriented distributed database server by the same name, has updated the open source license that applies to versions of its software published after October 16, 2018.

Previously, the MongoDB software was licensed under the GNU Affero General Public License v.3 (“AGPLv3”), which is a “strong copyleft” license. Strong copyleft licenses, among other things, require that the source code for the licensed software (including any modifications) be made available to the public, typically when the software is distributed to third parties. AGPLv3 goes further than other strong copyleft licenses in that the obligation to make source code available is triggered not only when the software is distributed, but also when it is accessed over a computer network, such as the Internet.

In an apparent response to attempts by users of MongoDB to architect their services so as to avoid the obligation to make their source code modifications available under AGPLv3, MongoDB has created a modified version of AGPLv3 (see here for a redline comparison) with broader disclosure and licensing obligations. The new license is called the Server Side Public License v.1 (“SSPLv1”).Continue Reading Understanding MongoDB’s New Copyleft Open Source License