V.i. Labs

Educated at The University of Kent and The College of Law, Julian Heathcote Hobbins is The Federation’s General Counsel. Prior to joining FAST in July 2001, Julian qualified as a solicitor and has experience in intellectual property law including working at City law firm Theodore Goddard (now Addleshaw Goddard) on Anti Copying In Design (ACID) matters.

Julian is responsible for The Federation’s Legal Affairs Team dealing with enforcement activities and Federation policy objectives which centre on maintaining the robust IP regime which underpins the success of the software industry with regular engagement with UKIPO (DIUS), BERR and the MOJ.

Julian is Deputy Chairman of the Federation’s Legal Advisory Group (FLAG) which has been running for 21 years and now includes 30 leading law firms. FLAG meets a number of times each year with Julian proposing the Agenda. Julian has assisted law enforcement agencies in criminal investigations including overseeing the securing of evidence for warrants plus The Federation’s Operation Red where police conducted a raid, made arrests and seized evidence following allegations of code theft. On civil matters, work has included managing the application to Court under the Norwich Pharmacal principle for disclosure of details in relation to unlawful peer to peer filing sharing in The Federation’s Operation Tracker.

Julian advises the Federation on legal matters, which are often inventive in nature, for example on the implementation by Trading Standards of their duties under Section 107A CDPA 1988 in the user environment.

Julian represents The Federation on the CBI IP and the Alliance Against IP Theft lawyers’ committees.
As a previous convenor of the Internet Enforcement Group (IEG), Julian has cyber-pirate investigative experience including tracing and website removal using specialist software and was involved in the launch of ReportIT, a unique browser based plug-in which allows the automatic reporting of pirate websites.

Julian has a particular interest in the legislation relating to software, e-mail and Internet law (including Open Source and data leakage) with recent focus centered around Representative Rights under Article 4 of the Enforcement Directive and preparing numerous responses to Government on relevant consultations, for example, under the seminal Gowers Review of Intellectual Property.

Mr. Kupferschmid is responsible for working directly with SIIA's Intellectual Property Committee to establish SIIA positions and moving the SIIA agenda on issues relating to intellectual property. He also supervises the Association's Anti-Piracy programs. Prior to joining SIIA, Mr. Kupferschmid was an attorney with the law firm of Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunner where he advised clients on all matters relating to copyright and copyright-related protection, including client counseling, opinion drafting, license negotiations, and litigation. Before that, Mr. Kupferschmid was an intellectual property attorney at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO), where he was responsible for international and legislative patent and copyright issues. During his time at the PTO, Mr. Kupferschmid worked extensively on bilateral and multilateral intellectual property issues, was responsible for formulating and advocating the Administration's policy relating to intellectual property and the Internet and represented the U.S. Government as a lead negotiator at the Diplomatic Conference on Certain Copyright and Neighboring Rights Questions that adopted the WIPO Copyright and Performances and Phonogram Treaties in December 1996.

Michael brings nearly 20 years of experience to his role as Marketing Director at V.i. Labs where he is responsible for corporate marketing. He has helped to educate the industry on the benefits of software intelligence to quantify and reduce software piracy through the Code Confidential blog and contributed articles in trade publications. Michael also encouraged discussion of these topics and the sharing of best practices by creating new venues like the Software Piracy Initiatives Forum on LinkedIn and V.i. Labs’ Software Compliance Panel series of events. Michael was previously a marketing programs manager at The MathWorks and principal at Goff Communications where he spent ten years offering strategic marketing communications services to emerging technology companies ranging from pre-funding and early stage businesses to startup divisions in Fortune 500 organizations. Michael earned a J.D. from Boston University School of Law and a B.A. from Colgate University.