AccelPro | Intellectual Property Law

Welcome to AccelPro IP Law, where we provide expert interviews and coaching to accelerate your professional development. Today we’re featuring a conversation with Mary Mazzello of Kirkland & Ellis.

Mazzello is a Partner at Kirkland & Ellis’ New York office, where she specializes in intellectual property litigation. Her practice focuses on trademark, copyright, trade secret, and music royalty matters. Mary has litigated cases across a wide range of venues, including trademark disputes before the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board, music copyright matters before the Copyright Royalty Board, IP disputes in state and federal courts, and appellate issues before the United States Supreme Court.

We talk about establishing trade secret claims, intellectual property protection strategies, the evolution of trade secret protection, risks posed by remote work and employees working in public areas like coffee shops, and more.

“My client worked for Company A and moved to Company B. Company A said that they think he stole trade secrets and filed for a preliminary injunction to prevent the guy from working at the new company for a year and to claw back any confidential information that they claimed he took,” Mazello says.

“We all showed up to court for the preliminary injunction hearing and the plaintiff had forgotten to file the paperwork to seal the courtroom. This meant that the courtroom was open to the public. All of their plans for doing cross examination related to the trade secrets went completely out the window.”