Bret A. Fausett is Of Counsel in the Firm’s Los Angeles office and a member of the Intellectual Property and Litigation departments.

Mr. Fausett was one of the country's first lawyers to focus on the intellectual property aspects of Internet law. Since 1997, Mr. Fausett has worked with both online companies and conventional brick and mortar businesses to bring their businesses online and comply with relevant state, national, and international laws and norms. In 1997, he successfully handled one of the first disputes between a trademark owner and a domain name registrant over the rights to the domain name "earth.com." Beginning in 1998, he worked with Hasbro to acquire and negotiate Internet rights to Hasbro's extensive portfolio of games, leading to the launch of one of the Internet's first online gaming sites, Games.com.

Most recently, Mr. Fausett was invited to speak at the United Nations' Internet Governance Forum held in Hyderabad, India in December 2008. At the U.N. Forum, he delivered a paper on the legality of using local points of control, such as domain name registrars and registries, hosting companies and IP addresses, to regulate international conduct.

Currently, Mr. Fausett represents a publicly traded domain name registrar and Internet services provider in all aspects of its online business and a major U.S.-sporting goods manufacturer and retailer in its California legal matters. In addition to his litigation work, Mr. Fausett handles a variety of intellectual property matters, including technology licensing and the licensing of trademarks and copyrights for online and conventionally distributed entertainment properties. He routinely negotiates and drafts licensing agreements and other rights agreements on behalf of a wide variety of clients.

Mr. Fausett has vast experience with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers ("ICANN"), the non-profit corporation tasked by the United States government with overseeing and managing the Internet's domain name system. He has served ICANN in a variety of roles, including as a member of the organization's Names Council, the At Large Advisory Committee, and the Nominating Committee for the Board of Directors. He has been an expert witness on the inner workings of  ICANN in both litigation and arbitrations.

• Intellectual property (trademark, copyright and rights of personality)
• Internet law
• General business litigation

• J.D., Vanderbilt University School of Law (1988; three-year Patrick Wilson Scholar in Law )
• A.B., University of Southern California (1985)

• Admitted to practice:  California
• Legal  Columnist, CMP Media Web Techniques and New Architect Magazine, winning the “Maggie” award for best regular magazine feature from Western Publications Association (2000-2003)