Trademarks Expert Witnesses: 21

William (Ned) McLeod, Esq., has been a party to many Licensing Arrangements as an attorney specializing in Intellectual Property in the Entertainment Industry (“IP”), both on the licensor and the licensee side of the table, in different matters from hard media historical archives to blockchain based creations, and, as a non-attorney producer, both as owner / licensor and, alternately, as user / licensee.

As an entertainment attorney for more than 30 years, Mr. McLeod has personally negotiated hundreds of licenses, and reviewed and evaluated hundreds more. He has studied or taught over 400 hours of Continuing Legal education courses, from historical copyright status analysis to blockchain mechanisms, dissecting project content as different as movie scripts and royalty contracts. Mr. McLeod has designed a college course curriculum for international university students entering the resort and theme park entertainment fields. His handling of licenses have covered a broad scope of venues and clientele, including:

The Rockefeller Center (NYC), the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry and The Navy Pier (IL), the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History (TX, with 8 associated museums), Graceland (TN), Niagara Falls (NY), The Smithsonian, the Kennedy Space Center (FL), Port of Los Angeles (CA), National Harbor (DC), Leadership Conference of Women Religious (“Catholic Sisters,” MD), the Tupperware Center (FL), Gatorland (FL), the Orlando Ballet (FL), Bob Ross (painter), Cousteau family ventures, 7 years of the Walt Disney World Christmas Day Parade (live and televised), and others.

Areas of Expertise:

Litigation Support - In Ned McLeod's 40 year capacity as producer, consultant, or attorney, he has negotiated, constructed, analyzed, attacked, or defended hundreds of business entertainment contracts, licenses, and litigation claims; and served as either consultant or expert witness on such matters.

As counsel (or, on occasion for a personal project, as producer), Mr. McLeod has obtained and operated licenses regarding Content, Properties, Brands, Venues, Likeness, Life Story, etc.) from Universal Music, Walt Disney Company, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, SONY, the Getty Images, Warner Bros. Music, TED Talks, Discovery Channel, ABC News, The Cousteau Society, Ford Motor Company, the Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings Collection, National Geographic, Jerry Lewis Films, The Beach Boys, Irving Berlin Music, Estate of Marvin Hamlisch, Richard Petty, Random House Books, Simon and Schuster, HarperCollins, the United States Air Force, NASA, Estate of Yuri Gagarin, Arkham House Books, and others.

Mr. McLeod has been the expert consultant and reviewer for licensing documents litigated against major industry icons SONY Pictures, Warner Bros. Pictures, National Enquirer, Mad Magazine, and others involving the review of thousands of pages of licenses from domestic and international records. In songs alone, Mr. McLeod has licensed hundreds regarding films, musicals, and film clips.  

View Ned McLeod's Consulting Profile.

Mehdi Tarrit Mirakhorli, PhD, is a Software Engineering professor in the department of Information and Computer Sciences at University of Hawaii at Manoa. Prior to that, Dr. Mirakhorli served as Kodak Endowed Chair, Associate Professor and Director of Research at ESL Global Cybersecurity Institute and Software Engineering Department at Rochester Institute of Technology.

Litigation Support - Dr. Tarrit Mirakhorli is a Subject Matter Expert in Public and Private Sector Litigation Matters. He has served as an expert on various litigations including SME on federal contract disputes, software trade secret misappropriation, and copyright infringements. With extensive academic experience, he excels at simplifying complex technology concepts for diverse audiences.  

Areas of Expertise:

Dr. Mirakhorli is also the director of Software Assurance Laboratory.  He has been honored with supporting the implementation of President Biden's Executive Order on Improving the Nation's Cybersecurity. 

Dr. Mirakhorli has been an ALTA Distinguished Speaker at Alcatel-Lucent, and has delivered numerous technical briefings to public policymakers, members of Congress, government officials, and the general public. He has carried out various projects of national importance and supported organizations in responding to investigations including OIG.  

More than 40 years experience: defective packaging; unreasonably dangerous products; failure-to-warn; materials-handling; warehousing; cargo loading and securement; falling cargo; insurance claims for loss or damaged cargo; falling merchandise; patent infringement; trade-dress infringement. Has testified in state and federal courts and knows how to connect with a jury. Has worked for Plaintiffs and Defendants. Services: consulting; analysis; cite inspections; exemplar testing; opining; report writing; testifying. Long list of attorney references. Self-employed consultant. Former employee at Fortune 100 firms. Former university instructor. Many published articles and speaking engagements. Knows how to combine theory and practice.

CPA, CFE, CPEA, CFF with 35 years of experience as a financial damages, accounting, royalties, licensing, valuation expert.  Calculations in intellectual property (copyright infringement, trademark infringement, patent infringement, DMCA, trade secrets), breach of contract, reasonable royalties, wrongful termination, personal injury, consumer product liability & royalty audits.  2017 California CPA of the Year & 2012 Certified Fraud Examiner of the Year. 

Expert in unjust enrichment & lost profits. Sample Industries: pharmaceuticals, medical devices, music, film, construction, machinery, security, toys, software, hardware, media, entertainment, energy, security, personal injury, partnerships, apparel & consumer products. Real world experience as Chief Audit Officer of Beats, KPMG Partner, and at Occidental Petroleum, Unocal, and Disney. While at Ernst & Young and KPMG, led national fraud and royalty auditing. Vice Chair ('16-'17) Board of Regents of the 80,000+ member Association of Certified Fraud Examiners. More than 3,000 forensic accounting contract investigations. 

Mr. Blum has extensive experience working on economic damages in both simple and multi-billion dollar complex litigations. With over 150 matters as an expert witness, his damage calculations have consistently been accepted in court, even in cases involving settlements up to $1 billion. His reports have been recognized as best examples by judges for their thoroughness and clarity. Mr. Blum has represented a broad range of clients, including leading law firms and major corporations across various industries. Some clients include:

Microsoft, Dolby, Sony, Paramount Pictures, Mattel, Warner Bros., McDonald’s, Shark Tank, WWE, Steven Spielberg, Tom Hanks, Amgen, GM, Sears, IGT, IMG, Tessera, Philips, Diageo, Harley-Davidson, DKNY, Chrysler, Ross, UMB Bank, Bank of America, Everlast, Fate Therapeutics, Medtronic.

Areas of Expertise:

View Sidney Blum's Consulting Profile.

Attorney, Antonio R. Sarabia II, has 30 years of experience in Consumer Licensing matters (revenue, standards, performance, and breaches), Trademarks, Copyrights, and issues occurring in the Apparel Industry. 

Background Experience - Mr. Sarabia is intimately familiar with the business problems and legal issues fashion companies may face. At the beginning of his apparel industry experience, Mr. Sarabia spent nine years as part of the senior management of Guess?, whose sales grew 400% during a single year. Over the course of his time there, the company transformed from a fad into a mainstay fashion company. Since leaving Guess?, Mr. Sarabia has advised various other apparel companies, from publicly-held companies to fast-growing companies like Earl Jean, to smaller start-up companies. .

Litigation Support - Mr. Sarabia is available to serve as an expert witness, whether through testifying, identifying important or relevant issues, or suggesting discovery in his areas of expertise. His services are available to attorneys for plaintiff and defendant.

Areas of Expertise:

• Licensing: revenue projections, forecasts, standards, performance, breach, selection of licensees, damages
• Intellectual Property: analysis, due diligence, investigations;
• Copyrights:  substantial similarity, originality
• Trademarks: secondary meaning, infringement, dilution, searches, investigations, due diligence, theft, trade dress, counterfeiting, rebuttal on damages
• Apparel Business: contracts, manufacturing (local, abroad), import, export, sales, distribution, apparel copyrights, substantial similarity of apparel lines, theft and protection of designs, rebuttal on damages
• Design Patents: defenses based on lack on originality, identify and analyze obviousness and prior art
• Attorney Malpractice: standards of practice for apparel business lawyers, intellectual property lawyers, and licensing lawyers

The team at Nolte Analytics, LLP includes experts with over 40 years of experience performing Damage Analyses, Valuation, Economic Studies, and Financial Investigations. Their experience prevents false starts and avoidable errors, delivering more cost-effective results.

Clients have included companies in the following industries: aerospace, automobile, banking, beverages, construction, electronics, technology, energy, entertainment, food, government, insurance, oil and gas, pharmaceuticals, restaurants, retail, and more.

The experts at Nolte Analytics have been quoted or published in the following, often multiple times: The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Associated Press, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Daily Journal, Los Angeles Lawyer, Los Angeles Business Journal, and many others for their opinion on matters relating to their area of specialization.

Litigation Support - Nolte Analytics' client work focuses primarily on valuation of businesses and intangible business assets, economic studies, royalty and fraud auditing, and litigation-related financial analysis. Their experts have served many of this country’s prominent companies and most of the largest law firms, with thousands of hours of testimony and over 200 trial testimonies. They typically present conclusions graphically, using a proprietary presentation system.  As a result, they have an unequalled track record of judges and juries accepting their conclusions.

Areas of Expertise:

• Business and intangible asset appraisal, loss of business value, minority shareholder disputes, buy-sell agreements
• Commercial damages measurements, including, unjust enrichment, lost profits, disgorgement, breach of contract, business interruption, business interference, patent infringement, trademark infringement, patent, copyright and trademark infringement, theft of trade secrets, reasonable royalties
• Employment claims, wrongful termination, wrongful death, personal injury, future lost earnings, loss of earnings capacity, loss of benefits
• Financial accounting Forensic accounting, royalty and compliance audits, fraud investigations

Nevium's experts are trial-tested IP custom & practice damages experts who take a hands-on approach with all their IP litigation assignments. Whether you are in need of an expert to calculate economic damages as lost profits / unjust enrichment, give an opinion on specific business clauses in a license agreement or to leverage Internet and Social Media analytics to prove or disapprove infringement, Nevium has the experience and expertise.

Litigation Support:Nevium works closely with C-Level executives, in-house and outside counsel to implement the best possible business strategy that intertwines with the legal strategy. Nevium is part of the team early on in the litigation process assisting with discovery requests and deposition questions. Nevium’s experience and expertise allows the managing attorney to focus on the legal issues knowing that Nevium is proactively taking care of the business side of the case. As experienced Intellectual Property Consultants, they have real-word, hands on IP management, monetization and valuation experience that plays out well in front of a judge and jury. Nevium professionals provide IP expert witness testimony related to economic damages in a range of lost profits, unjust enrichment, relief from royalty, reasonable royalty, relief from pay per click, corrective advertising and IP valuation. They author reports and provide testimony for federal and state court claims, arbitration, and mediation related to false endorsement, defamation, infringement and unfair competition.

Litigation Expertise

Areas of Analyses Expertise

Past Law Firm Clients

Doug Bania, CLP, Founding Principal
Doug Bania is a founding principal of Nevium Intellectual Property Consultants.  Nevium is an intellectual property consulting firm specializing in developing IP strategies, IP valuation and monetization of IP as well as providing expert testimony related to IP damages and licensing customs and practices. He has been the named expert for over 75 cases, deposed 20 times, and has provided trial testimony 5 times.

Mr. Bania is a Certified Licensing Professional (CLP), a Google Analytics Certified Individual (GAIQ), and is a past committee member (2016 - 2019) for the International Trademark Association (INTA) Internet Committee and the ICANN Compliance and Domain Name Industry Subcommittee, a current member of the INTA Right of Publicity Committee and the American Bar Association (ABA), Copyright & Social Media Committee.

Mr. Bania specializes in analyses for copyright, trade dress, trade secrets and trademark infringement, publicity rights, social media and Internet infringement, defamation, marketing strategy analyses, royalty rate determinations and other intangible assets. Mr. Bania also provides valuation and monetization strategies for trademarks, trade secrets, publicity rights, domain names, Internet and social media assets, brands, copyrights and other intangible assets for financial reporting, bankruptcy and transactional due diligence.

View Nevium's Consulting Profile.

Dr. Thomas Maronick has provided both plaintiff and defense litigators with marketing and consumer expertise for over 25 years. Prior to that he was the in-house marketing expert at the FTC. Since leaving the FTC in 1997, Dr. Maronick has been qualified as an expert in numerous federal and state courts, providing expert reports, affidavits, and testimony on marketing, advertising, and consumer behavior matters. 

Dr. Maronick has designed and implemented over 300 consumer surveys for litigation and/or policy related strategies, using virtually every survey research methodology, including mall-intercept studies, telephone and mail surveys, and studies using the internet and consumer mail panels. Dr. Maronick has testified (deposition/trial) over 75 times in the past five years and is the author of research of the use of surveys in litigation. 

Areas of Expertise:

• False and Deceptive Advertising
• Deceptive Marketing Practices
• Consumer/Advertising Survey Research
• Packaging
• Trademark/Tradedress

Jason McDonald, PhD, is a expert witness, who specializes in SEO (Search Engine Optimization), Social Media Marketing, and Google Ads (AdWords) and has been retained by clients all over the world. His primary focus for his expert witness work is on digital marketing and online advertising, both organic and paid. 

Background Experience - With a BA from Harvard and a PhD from Berkeley, Dr. McDonald began working at a number of San Francisco Bay Area start ups, ranging from Omnibus, Computer Currents, and MW Media. He also wrote freelance for many years with articles appearing in trade journals and press such as EE Times, Dr. Dobb’s, and Software Development Forum. In 1995, he left MW Media and was one of the co-founders of eg3.com. 

Today, Dr. McDonald is Senior Editor for content at eg3.com and is responsible for website coverage (keywords), the monthly newsletter, and the series of Insiders’ Guides on topics from RTOS to FPGAs. He also is the Senior SEO Director at the JM Internet Group. The author of the best-selling SEO  Workbook, Google Ads, and Social Media Marketing Workbooks on Amazon, Dr. McDonald currently teaches at Stanford University Continuing Studies and has taught at the Bay Area Video Academy (BAVC), and AcademyX in San Francisco, California. 

Litigation Support - Dr. McDonald is certified in both California state court and Federal court to testify as an SEO, Social Media Marketing, and Google Ads (AdWords) expert witness. His cases have involved trademark, advertising, and other internet-related issues. With deposition and trial testimony experience, his services are available to counsel representing both Plaintiff and Defendant.

• SEO Areas of Expertise: Goal Assessment, Keywords, On Page Optimization, Off Page Optimization, Metrics, Rank
• Google Ads (AdWords) Expertise - AdWords Assessment, Keyword Match Types, Search Network vs. Display Network, Conversions and eCommerce, Metrics, Beyond AdWords
• Social Media Expertise - Facebook litigation, Twitter litigation, LinkedIn litigation or any litigation involving social media marketing

View Dr. McDonald's Consulting Profile.

• SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
• Search Engine "Linking" Campaigns
• PPC (Pay Per Click Advertising)
• Web Hosting
• Web Design
• Web Application Development,
• E-Commerce Site Development
• Web Project Management
• Affiliate Marketing
• Improving Online "Conversions"
• E-Mail Publishing
• Online PR
• "Community" Marketing

Dr. Gerald M. Goldhaber is President & CEO of Goldhaber Research Associates, LLC. Over the past 46 years, he has emerged as one of the nation's leading safety warning communication experts. Dr. Goldhaber has been retained in over 200 lawsuits dealing with the issue of warnings and has written numerous research articles on the subject of effective warning labels. His clients include over 100 of the top 500 corporations in the U.S. and 50 of the top 100 law firms and government agencies including the FDA, USDA, CPSC and the DOD.  He has designed, developed and defended warning labels for International Playtex, Owens Corning Fiberglas, Dr. Pepper Seven Up, Rheem, Otis Elevator, Daikin USA, S. C. Johnson, and the Swimming Pool & ATV Industries.

Dr. Goldhaber has written and edited 11 books on the topic of communication.  His 12th book, MURDER INC.: How Unregulated Industry Kills or Injures Thousands of Americans Every Year...and What You Can Do About It is now in print, was an Amazon Best Seller and named by Kirkus Reviews as one of the top one hundred non-fiction books of 2020.  For the past 14 years, he has published the Goldhaber Warnings Report, which reaches over 10,000 litigators nationwide.  He has served as an analyst for numerous radio and television shows, most recently CNN Tonight. He has been selected as a member of Who's Who in America and Who's Who in the World.

Areas of Expertise: 

Product Liability and Personal Injury

Warning Label Research

Warnings and Safety Communications

Radhakrishnaiah Parachuru is a Textile Engineer with BS, MS and PhD degrees in Textile Engineering & MS degree in Applied Statistics. A multidisciplinary scientist, Dr. Parachuru possesses more than 35 years of teaching, research, and industrial experience in Polymer, Fiber, Textile, Apparel, Carpet, and other related disciplines. 

Serving as the coordinator of industry and public support activities at Georgia Tech, Dr. Parachuru has completed more than 180 applied research projects for the benefit of all segments of the Textile and Allied industries. Projects completed fall in the following categories:

• Product / Process Optimization
• Testing and Evaluation of all Types of Fiber Products Including Woven & Knitted Fabrics, Nonwovens, Carpets, and Technical Textilles
• Flammability Testing of Fabrics, Garments, Carpets and Nonwovens
• Application of Advances in the Materials Field, Especially Advances in Nano and Bio Materials for the Advancement of Fiber Product Industry
• Application of Performance Finishes to Fiber Products Through Wet Treatments
• Technical Trouble Shooting in Spinning, Weaving, Knitting, Dyeing, Printing and Textile Finishing Processes
• Design and Evaluation of New Fiber Products for Application in Medical, Construction, Transportation, etc. Sectors
• Assistance for Product Diversification
• Establishment of Quality Control Facilities and QC Routines

Dr. Parachuru has also conducted basic research in the area of Textile Manufacturing and served as the main advisor of several graduate students at Georgia Tech. He has been an active member of Fiber Society, AATCC, ASTM and TQCA. Dr. Parachuru currently serves as an active member of several AATCC technical committees and also as chairman of the AATCC committee on statistics. His current research interests are in the area of medical and industrial textiles. 

Consultation Services - Dr. Parachuru offers technical consultation to manufacturers, distributors, wholesalers, and retailers. His services cover the entire spectrum of the fiber product industry. 

Litigation Support - Dr. Parachuru has been qualified as a Fiber / Textile Expert after appearing as an expert in more than Forty court cases. His experience covers federal, state, and county courts in multiple states within the United States.

Areas of Expertise:

Eric Forister, PhD, is an expert Economist with testifying experience on market definition, market power, and damages. His expertise includes applying advanced statistical techniques to datasets, synthesizing information from documents, and designing and evaluating surveys. A Senior Economist at Econ One, he focuses on relevant questions to tackle complex issues with an efficient and effective style of communication. Dr. Forister also has extensive experience consulting on issues including royalty rates, irreparable harm, sampling, survey design, common impact, and materiality.

Ideal Client Engagement: For litigation-related matters, an ideal engagement would be providing an opinion on economics, damages, market power, or market definition; or providing pre-litigation advice on the economics of potential claims, or the merits of a survey. For non-litigation matters, an ideal engagement would be helping to explain the economics of different business models or consulting to those considering buying or starting an optometry office.

Experience: Dr. Forister has acted in a support/consulting role on over 100 matters. His support work has been a mix of plaintiff and defense work. Dr. Forister has designed and evaluated surveys for IP and marketing cases and worked on a wide range of other matters, including:

• Antitrust - price fixing, exclusionary conduct, monopsony, unfair competition, Robinson-Patman
• Intellectual Property - SEP, FRAND, patents, trademark, irreparable harm
• Marketing - false advertising, product labeling
• General Damages - breach of contract, bankruptcy

Education/Training:

• PhD in Business Administration (Field: Economics), Stanford Graduate School of Business
• BS in Mathematics / Economics, University of California at Los Angeles, magna cum laude

View Dr. Forister's Consulting Profile.

Reasoning, Inc., led by Dr. Timothy Habick, provides expert forensic linguistic services for trademark disputes, defamation cases, authorship attribution, and document evaluation.

With over two decades of experience, we deliver precise analyses, expert testimony, and solutions rooted in linguistic science and professional standards. 

Our work spans high-profile cases globally, including evaluating trademark confusion, resolving authorship disputes, and ensuring clarity in legal and educational documents. Dr. Habick's expertise in multilingual contexts and AI-detection analysis adds unique value to complex cases. Committed to meticulous, ethical practice, we provide transparent, evidence-based insights to address your language-related challenges effectively

Areas of Expertise:

Professional Affiliations
International Language and Law Association

Germanic Society of Forensic Linguists
International Association of Forensic Linguists (IAFL)

Ray Horak provides litigation support as a consulting expert and testifying expert in cases involving the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), product/service misrepresentation, contract disputes, and intellectual property (patent, copyright, and trademark/service mark infringement) disputes, as well as issues of taxes and fees allegedly owed to 911 districts and municipalities. Those cases have involved a broad range of technologies, including Automatic Telephone Dialing Systems (ATDSs), text messaging, cellular, DSL, E911, fax, PBX, prepaid cellular, push-to-talk (PTT), videoconferencing, VoIP, ringless voice mail and voice processing.

He also has performed numerous technical compliance reviews of the telephony systems that financial institutions and survey companies and their third party vendors employ in sales, collections, customer service and opinion polling. The objective of those engagements, several of which are ongoing, is to determine the specific nature and capacities (present, potential and theoretical) of the telephony systems (e.g., ATDS and PBX) and subsystems, the systems of record (i.e., databases), Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems, Receivables Management (RM) systems, and any and all other peripheral systems, both premises- and cloud-based.

Ray is an Independent Consultant with a General Practice in Wireline and Wireless Telecommunications and Related Fields such as the Internet and Voice over IP. His 45 years’ experience includes management and executive positions with Southwestern Bell, CONTEL, and Executone. Ray authored the best-selling Communications Systems & Networks, (John Wiley & Sons), Telecommunications and Data Communications Handbook (Wiley-Interscience), and Webster’s New World Telecom Dictionary (Webster’s New World). Previously, Ray was Senior Contributing Editor for Newton’s Telecom Dictionary (12th through 21st Editions). He has written hundreds of technical white papers, case studies, articles, and columns for major print and electronic publications such as CommWeb, Computer Telephony, Datapro, Network World, The Prepaid Press, Teleconnect, and Telecom Reseller. Ray also has served as Technical Editor for several book-length works, including Deploying Secure 802.11 Wireless Networks with Microsoft Windows (Microsoft Press, 2003).