
Business lawyer, with an intellectual-property background.
Houston, Texas Area

Business lawyer, with an intellectual-property background.
Houston, Texas Area
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I'm a business lawyer in private practice, based in Houston. Most of my work involves helping clients draft and negotiate technology contracts.
I spent nearly 17 years at Arnold, White & Durkee, one of the largest intellectual-property litigation firms in the U.S. (now Howrey LLP). I was a partner and an elected member of the management committee, with an "AV" peer-review rating from Martindale-Hubbell. My practice focused mainly on software-related matters.
I left AW&D to join BindView Corporation, a software company, as vice president, general counsel, and secretary. I had helped the founder with aspects of starting the company and came in-house after it went public. We survived the tech bubble and the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and had fun in the process. I left BindView, along with the other non-operational execs, after the company was acquired by software giant Symantec Corporation.
Among other publications, I was the editor and principal author of a one-volume legal treatise, The Law and Business of Computer Software, published by West Group. I was also the principal drafter of the Model Software License Provisions project of the ABA Section of Intellectual Property Law.
I'm a member of the bar in Texas, California (inactive), the U.S. Supreme Court (and other courts), and am registered to practice before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
I was graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a B.A. in mathematics (with high honors) and later a J.D.; in law school I served on the Texas Law Review.
Between college and law school I did my Navy ROTC scholarship payback as a nuclear engineering officer, including three years of sea duty in the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise.
My last name is pronounced "Tate," which is the anglicized pronunciation of the original German spelling, Tödt. I've gone by "DC" since birth because of the Roman numeral III after my name.
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