Brian W. Gray
Senior Partner, Lawyer, Patent Agent, Trade-mark Agent
Brian Gray practises litigation and dispute resolution for patent, copyright, trade-mark, entertainment and advertising matters. He counsels and represents clients with large patent and trade-mark portfolios and has appeared before the Federal and Ontario courts on patent, trade-mark and copyright matters.
His experience includes parallel imports and grey market trade-mark cases, copyright authorship and ownership disputes in the motion picture industry, trial and appeal of patent infringement cases, brand name pharmaceutical patent litigation and notice of compliance cases, inventorship claims and patent disputes in the academic sector, trade secret cases, television and motion picture co-production and financing, technology transfer and patent licensing, patent drafting and patent opinions, patent and trade-mark portfolio management and counselling, and advertising litigation and counselling.
Prior to joining our Toronto office, Mr. Gray was a partner at another major law firm in Toronto.
Year of call
Ontario 1979
Year of registration
Canada (patents) 1980
United States (patents) 1980
Canada (trade-marks) 1979
Law school
LL.B., University of Toronto, 1977
Education
M.A., Government, Cornell University, 1974
B.A., Chemistry and History, Cornell University, 1971
Selected client work
Mr. Gray’s client work includes:
- Acting as Canadian counsel to Nortel for patent matters in connection with its multijurisdictional insolvency proceedings, including its agreement to sell its global Carrier VoIP and Application Solutions (CVAS) business to GENBAND and the sale of its optical networking and Ethernet businesses to Ciena and its enterprise solutions business to Avaya
- Recent experience advising financial institutions on business method patents and business software (Amazon case) and policy issues and litigation relating thereto, including defence against DataTreasury patent claims
- Copyright authorship and ownership disputes for major motion picture studios; motion picture and television co-production and financing
- Trial and appeal of patent infringement cases for a major forest machinery company
- Brand name pharmaceutical patent litigation and notice of compliance cases
- Inventorship claims and patent disputes for one of Canada’s leading universities
- Trade secret cases for a graphic chip manufacturer
- Technology transfer and patent licensing; patent drafting and patent opinions
- Patent and trade-mark portfolio management and counselling, grey market cases
- Advertising litigation and counselling
Rankings and recognitions
- Chambers Global: The World’s Leading Lawyers for Business, 2011, 2012: Intellectual Property
- World Trademark Review, expert in enforcement and litigation
- Recognized by Benchmark Canada as a litigation star
- Guide to the World's Leading Trade Mark Law Practitioners, 2012
- Best Lawyers in Canada, 2012 - Biotechnology Law, Intellectual Property Law
- The International Who's Who of Life Sciences Lawyers, 2012
- The International Who's Who of Patent Lawyers, 2012
- Recognized as one of the top trade-mark lawyers in Canada in The Best of the Best 2011
- PLC Which lawyer?, 2011 - IP: non-patent litigation; Life sciences: patent litigation
- The International Who's Who of Trademark Lawyers, 2011
- Lexpert
- Guide to the Leading 500 Lawyers in Canada
- Who's Who Legal
- Global Counsel 3000
- Managing Intellectual Property
Memberships and activities
- World Intellectual Property Organization
- Joint Copyright Committee, Canadian Bar Association and Intellectual Property Institute of Canada
- Intellectual Property Institute of Canada
- Ministerial science advisory committee
- International Bar Association
- Former Chair, Intellectual Property Committee
- Editorial board, World Intellectual Property Report
- Editorial board, Federated Press Intellectual Property Quarterly
- Editorial board, World E-Commerce Report
- Editorial board, Trade-Mark Reporter
- Lecturer, patent and trade-mark law, University of Toronto
- Lecturer, copyright law, McGill University
Directorships
- Director, technology transfer company of one of Canada’s major universities
- Past director, technology network of one of Canada’s major research universities