Fulbright & Jaworski welcomes John “Rocky” Rawls and Sarah Silbert to its Los Angeles office as partner and senior associate, respectively.
John “Rocky” Rawls joins Fulbright as partner in its Intellectual Property Department. He primarily focuses on trademark enforcement and brand protection, false advertising and unfair competition and misappropriation of name and likeness claims.
Prior to joining Fulbright, Rawls was a partner at Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue, where he served as national trademark enforcement counsel for Starbucks Corporation, national trademark counsel for a leading cellular services company, national and international trademark enforcement counsel for a Fortune 500 Internet company, and regional trademark counsel for a prominent photographic film company. He also advised clients in the telecommunications, publishing and advertising industries with respect to the intellectual property issues presented by the operation of “e-commerce” businesses. He has filed and won more that 20 claims under the Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy, a new procedure that permits a low cost resolution of trademark disputes relating to Internet domain names.
Rawls’ experience includes copyright, trademark, patent, trade secret, and right of publicity cases, primarily for clients in the technology, entertainment, and consumer product industries.
He is a member of the State Bar of California and is admitted to practice before the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals. He is currently a member of the International Trademark Association, the Intellectual Property Owners Association and the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.
Rawls received a B.A. in 1979 from Columbia University, and a J.D. in 1982 from The University of Texas at Austin.
Sarah Silbert’s primary focus as senior associate is in trademark enforcement and brand protection. Prior to joining Fulbright, she was an associate at Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue, where she represented a major Internet client in numerous trademark infringement matters in federal district court, before the Trademark Trial and Appeals Board, and before administrative panels of the World Intellectual Property Organization pursuant to the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy. In addition, she has experience in complex litigation, right to publicity, copyright and patent infringement matters. Prior to attending law school, Silbert worked in marketing, publishing and advertising.
Silbert received a B.A. in 1989 from the University of California, Santa Cruz. She then received an M.B.A., with concentrations in marketing and international business, in 1991 from Columbia University, and a J.D. in 1998 from Boalt Hall at the University of California, Berkeley. Ms. Silbert is admitted to practice in California
