John Tehranian
Partner

Education

Representative Clients

• New Line Cinema
• Josh Agle (a.k.a. Shag)
• X17
• Western Digital Corp.
• Wall Street Reporter
• LiveOffice
• Zankou Chicken
• Avila's El Ranchito
• Atchity Entertainment International
• Licensemusic.com ApS
• Charly Records
• Shiva Rea
• Tommy's Original Chili Factory
• Actioncam
• Bettie Page Clothing

Notable Entertainment & Intellectual Property Litigation

• Representing a leading Hollywood photography agency in a high-profile copyright infringement and "hot news" misappropriation suit against a prominent Internet gossip blogger.
• Representing a renowned artist and illustrator in copyright and trademark infringement suits against several multinational media conglomerates.
• Defending a prominent Southern California architect in a novel and high-profile architectural copyright infringement suit involving two multi-million dollar Tuscan-style mansions.
• Serving as an expert witness on copyright law in an infringement suit involving architectural works and construction designs under the Architectural Works Copyright Protection Act
• Serving as an expert witness on copyright law in an infringement suit involving product labeling and instructions for a major home appliance manufacturer.
• Representing a leading financial media publication in numerous copyright, misappropriation and breach of contract suits .

• Defending the developer of a leading Internet software application against trademark infringement claims by the world's largest peer-to-peer file sharing network.
• Representing a major Hollywood studio in a movie title dispute over a prominent forthcoming summer release.
• Defending a prominent international Yogini in trademark infringement litigation over a best-selling line of DVDs.
• Representing the owners of a famous restaurant chain in a dispute involving trademark ownership and infringement of the restaurant's name.
• Representing a leading consumer product company in the extreme sports space regarding protection of its marks.

• Representing a scientist-patentee, the inventor of a microprocessor-controlled artificial respirator system, in a successful willful patent infringement suit against a medical manufacturer that resulted in a $3.5 million judgment, including a $1 million award for attorneys' fees.
• Representing a multinational biotechnology conglomerate in patent infringement litigation relating to cardioplegic solutions infused into the human heart to minimize muscle damage during open-heart surgery.
• Representing a manufacturer of music-related technology in a patent infringement and antitrust lawsuit.
• Defending a publicly traded technology developer in patent infringement litigation involving optoelectronic transceivers and surface emitting lasers for use in multi-gigabit fiber optic telecommunications networks.

Notable Appellate Experience

• Obtaining a unanimous reversal in Taylor v. Delatoore, 281 F.3d 844 (9th Cir. 2002), a civil rights appeal before the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
• Obtaining a successful remand in Al Salami v. Ashcroft, No. 02-70260 (9th Cir. 2002), a political asylum appeal before the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
• Drafting an amicus curiae brief on behalf of the respondents in Rice v. Cayetano, 528 U.S. 495 (2000), a constitutional and Native Hawaiian rights appeal before the United States Supreme Court.
• Representing respondent in Tehrani v. Hamilton Medical, Inc., 331 F.3d 1355 (Fed. Cir. 2003), a patent infringement appeal before the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.
• Obtaining a unanimous reversal and remand in Crow Irvine #2 v. Winthrop California Investors Limited Partnership, 128 Cal. Rptr. 2d 644 (Ct. App. 2002), a commercial dispute involving partnership rights before the California Court of Appeal.
  

Scholarship Highlights

• Whitewashed (New York University Press, 2009).
• The Last Minstrel Show? 41 CONNECTICUT LAW REVIEW 781 (2009).
• Selective Racialization, 40 CONNECTICUT LAW REVIEW 1201 (2008).
• Infringement Nation: Copyright Reform and the Law/Norm Gap, 2007 UTAH LAW REVIEW 537 (2007).
• Compulsory Whiteness, 82 INDIANA LAW JOURNAL 1 (2007).
• The Secret Life of Legal Doctrine: The Divergent Evolution of Secondary Liability in Trademark and Copyright Law, 21 BERKELEY TECHNOLOGY LAW JOURNAL 1363 (2006) (co-authored with Mark Bartholomew).
• Aloha, Section 1981, LEGAL TIMES (June 19, 2006).
• Whither Copyright? Transformative Use, Free Speech, and an Intermediate Liability Proposal, 2005 B.Y.U LAW REVIEW (2005).
• Copyright Liability After Grokster, CALIFORNIA LAYWER 37 (November 2005).
  The High Court in Cyberspace: MGM v. Grokster, Digital Copyright, and Secondary Infringement Theories, 47 ORANGE COUNTY LAWYER 24 (April 2005).
• Et Tu, Fair Use? The Triumph of Natural-Law Copyright, 38 U.C. DAVIS LAW REVIEW 465 (2005).
• Government Surnames and Legal Identities, in NATIONAL IDENTIFICATION SYSTEMS: ESSAYS IN OPPOSITION 11 (Carl Watner, ed., 2004) (co-author with James C. Scott and Jeremy Mathias).
• Sanitizing Cyberspace: Obscenity, Miller and the Future of Public Discourse on the Internet, 11 JOURNAL OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY LAW 1 (2003).
• All Rights Reserved? Reassessing Copyright and Patent Enforcement in the Digital Age, 72 UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI LAW REVIEW 45 (2003).
• Optimizing Piracy: Achieving Efficient Management of Intellectual Property Portfolios, in IL CONGRESO INTERNACIONAL DE LA SOCIEDAD DE LA INFORMACION Y EL CONOCIMIENTO (CISIC) 2003 ANNUAL PROCEEDINGS, New York: McGraw Hill (2003).
• The Creation of Legal Identities Proper to the State: The Case of the Permanent Family Surname, 44 COMPARATIVE STUDIES IN SOCIETY AND HISTORY 4 (2002) (co-author with James C. Scott and Jeremy Mathias).
• A New Segregation? Race, Rice v. Cayetano, and the Constitutionality of Hawaiian-Only Education and the Kamehameha Schools, 23 UNIVERSITY OF HAWAI'I LAW REVIEW 109 (2000).
• Performing Whiteness: Naturalization Litigation and the Construction of Racial Identity in America, 109 YALE LAW JOURNAL 817 (2000).
• Famine and the Rule of Law: Freedom of the Press, Regime Consolidation and the Politics of Starvation. A Study of the 1982-1985 Droughts in Ethiopia, Kenya and Zimbabwe, in NOT BY BREAD ALONE: FOOD SECURITY AND GOVERNANCE IN AFRICA 145 (Ade Ogunrinade et al. eds., 1999).
  

Professional Affiliations