Robb Harvey is a partner in Waller Lansden's Trial and Appellate Litigation practice and former chair of the practice group. He has extensive experience in complex commercial, intellectual property, media and franchise litigation involving substantial damages claims in federal and state courts across the country. These cases have included contract disputes, unfair trade practices and product disparagement, fraud and other commercial torts, franchise rights, civil RICO, non-competition/solicitation provisions, and class action disputes including multi-district litigation proceedings. His experience in intellectual property and media disputes includes defamation/privacy, trademarks, computer fraud, patents, trade dress, copyrights, trade secrets, counterfeiting, the Internet, domain names, technology and intellectual property counseling. Mr. Harvey also has successfully defended class action lawsuits alleging violations of federal and state consumer protection and financial statutes, including serving as state counsel in national class action litigation alleging consumer protection violations by a consumer products manufacturer.
Companies and individuals who require expedited results often turn to Mr. Harvey. These calls sometimes involve seeking injunctive relief against a group of employees who are believed to be exiting with computer-downloaded information and trade secrets in hand, or advocating for the broadcast/publication of a news story or documentary, or obtaining machinery/molds necessary for manufacturing processes. Increasingly these calls involve Internet disputes, such as defamation, impersonation, and cyber-squatting, or the need to protect a company’s executives and brands.
Mr. Harvey represents national franchisors, manufacturers and distributors in suits to enjoin trademark infringement and enforce termination of franchise. He also serves as defense counsel against claims of franchise disclosure violations and a variety of tort and statutory claims. When a Tennessee-based distributor was named in bet-the-company litigation in another state involving the attempted termination of an agreement by an importer-manufacturer, Mr. Harvey was engaged to defend, and the result was an expanded distribution arrangement and significant payment to the distributor. He recently defended a national franchisor when another company refused to complete its acquisition.
Mr. Harvey has defended major motion picture companies as well as songwriters as lead counsel in trademark, right of publicity, copyright, and defamation/false light matters. Television networks and affiliates, newspapers, advertisers and advertising agencies as well as non-media clients rely on Mr. Harvey for assistance with a broad range of problems such as defamation, privacy, newsgathering, subpoenas, Freedom of Information Act/Public Records/Open Meetings, copyrights, promotion, access, and related business and legal issues. A regional daily newspaper and a network television affiliate call on Mr. Harvey for prepublication review and counseling. He has served as counsel in a number of precedent-setting intellectual property and media cases, including ones leading to the identification of persons posting false information about a public company, applying the Tennessee Supreme Court's Rule 30 concerning cameras in courtrooms, recognizing that Tennessee Newspersons’ Shield Law extends to non-confidential materials, and applying the fair use doctrine.
Mr. Harvey has been involved in numerous other intellectual property disputes, including successfully resolving a copyright/contract case in New York against a healthcare patient payment processing company over computer software, obtaining the dismissal of an entertainment company from the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, defending a gaming licensor in a Texas suit in which a competitor was required to abandon its trademark registration, assisting in resolving a trade dress matter for an international soft drink manufacturer regarding a bottle design, and obtaining summary judgment for a national franchisor regarding allegations of copyright infringement in the creation of training materials.
Mr. Harvey is recognized in Chambers USA in Media and Entertainment, and in The Best Lawyers in America® (Woodward White, Inc.) in four areas -- commercial litigation, intellectual property, franchise law, and First Amendment law. He also has been recognized in multiple years in the NashvilleBusiness Journal's "Best of the Bar" and Super Lawyers (Law & Politics).
Additional Experience
· When the nonprofit entity which operates the home of President Andrew Jackson and surrounding properties became involved in a real estate/contract dispute involving reverter issues, Mr. Harvey was asked to defend and thus far has achieved two summary judgments decisions, one affirmed on appeal thus far.
· He was part of a trial team in a recent federal jury case involving competitors that resulted in a sizeable compensatory and punitives verdict.
· Mr. Harvey has successfully defended several shareholder derivative suits, including serving as lead counsel in a New York suit against a healthcare company to prevent the sale of the company.
· He also has experience in obtaining and collecting judgments in multiple foreign countries, having obtained judgments against foreign makers and guarantors for a finance corporation for marine and agricultural equipment.
· When a local court recently decided to engage a Special Master to deal with computer issues regarding the Stored Communications Act, Mr. Harvey was asked to serve in that capacity.
· Mr. Harvey is regularly engaged to act as local counsel in matters in federal and state court which are primarily being handled by counsel from other states.
Education
J.D., Vanderbilt University, 1985
Associate Editor, Vanderbilt Law Review, 1984-1985
B.S., magna cum laude, Engineering Science, Vanderbilt University, 1982
James Stewart Honor Scholar
President, Student Government Association
Tau Beta Pi engineering honor society
Clerkships and Previous Affiliations
Law clerk to the Honorable Thomas A. Wiseman, Jr., then Chief Judge of the United States District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee, 1985-1986
Associate and partner, Farris Warfield & Kanaday, Nashville Tennessee, 1986-1994
Media Law Resource Center, Trial Committee’s immediate past chairman
Served on ABA Litigation Section Subcommittee that drafted Model Trademark Jury Instructions published by ABA in 2008
Past Chair and current Member, Media Law Committee and Member of the Federal Courts and Intellectual Property Committees of the Nashville Bar Association
Member, Defense Research Institute (Commercial Litigation, IP, Electronic Discovery committees)
Member, Forum on Franchising and the Forum on Communications Law of the ABA
Member, ABA First Amendment and Media Litigation Committee of the Section of Litigation
Member, Tennessee Bar Association, Intellectual Property and Litigation Sections
Fellow, Nashville Bar Foundation
Past Member, Harry Phillips American Inn of Court
Contributor to The Encyclopedia of the First Amendment, CQ Press
Contributor to Media Guide to Tennessee’s Legal System, Tennessee Supreme Court and First Amendment Center
Civic and Other Activities
State’s Advisory Committee on Open Government, appointed by the State’s Comptroller
Vanderbilt University Bill Wilkerson Hearing and Speech Center, Advisory Board Member
Boy Scouts of America, Middle Tennessee Council Executive Committee and Chair of the Membership Standards Committee
Tennessee Coalition for Open Government, Inc., Organizing Member and Board Member
Center for Youth Ministry Training, Inc. (nonprofit in partnership with Princeton Theological Seminary, Duke Divinity School, Martin Methodist College and Vanderbilt Divinity School), organizer, member and former Board member
Former Elder and Deacon, Chair of Personnel Committee and Child Protection Task Force, First Presbyterian Church
Downtown Rotary Club, Member
Recipient of the Paragon Award for Community Service, 2008, presented by the Junior League of Nashville
Professional Licenses
Tennessee
Court Admissions
United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
United States District Courts for the Middle and Eastern Districts of Tennessee
United States District Court for the Northern District of Florida, Eastern District of Michigan, and Western District of Pennsylvania
Additional pro hac vice admissions in numerous jurisdictions
