Tara Aaron
(CIPP/US, CIPP/E)

Tara helps clients across multiple industries and countries with licenses and disputes involving trademarks, copyrights, domain names, software, trade secrets, and privacy compliance. She earned her Certified Information Privacy Professional (CIPP) in U.S. Privacy Law in 2018 and in European Data Protection Law in 2019. Her clients include data brokers, market research firms, technology start-ups, software developers, and website designers as well as long-standing institutional clients who come to her for representation in copyright, trademark, licensing and privacy. She also assists with the purchase and sale of intellectual property assets. She has on multiple occasions successfully obtained hijacked domain names for the rightful owners, and regularly negotiates service and technology agreements with the largest telecommunications and software providers in the country. She is frequently invited to speak, write, and podcast about issues around data protection and where it intersects with trademark concerns.

Her trademark work connects her with clients and colleagues around the globe, as she assists foreign companies with protecting their marks and their brands in the U.S. while also helping U.S. clients expand their reach to other territories, from Mexico to Macau.

Practice Areas:

• Trademark
• Data Protection and Privacy Compliance
• Contract Drafting and Negotiation
• Technology Licensing
• Internet Law
• Copyright Licensing and Registration

Education:

• J.D., University of Tennessee, 2004
  Member, Order of the Coif
  Member, Law Review, 2002-2004
• B.A., cum laude, Vanderbilt University, 1997
• Semester Abroad, University College Cork (Cork, Ireland), 1996

Honors and Awards:

• 2013 – 2020 Best Lawyers
• 2012 – 2015, Super Lawyers Mid-South Rising Star

Recent Publications and Presentations:

• Guest, Ipse Dixit Podcast, “Privacy Law and Policy“, January 2020
• Presenter, “Data Privacy: New Challenges for Pharma and their Brands” Pharmaceutical Trademark Group Conference, Berlin, October 2019.
• Presenter,”When Big Data is Personal Data: Data Analytics in the Age of Privacy Laws” Nashville Analytics Summit, September 2019.
• Speaker, “GDPR and U.S. Companies,” Tennessee Bar Association, February 2019
• Author, “The US Trademark Office Post Registration Proof of Use Audit Programme should be taken seriously,” Financier Worldwide Magazine, January 2019.
• Author, “Availability of WHOIS Information After the GDPR—Is It Time to Panic?,” The Trademark Reporter® 108 TMR No. 6 (November-December 2018)
• Speaker, “GDPR for Clients,” Tennessee Attorney’s Memo Practitioner’s CLE, November 15, 2018.
• Speaker, “GDPR for Companies“, TechFed Lunch & Learn, August 8th 2018.
• Speaker, “GDPR: A Path Towards Privacy Program Enhancement,” Nashville Technology Council, June 25th 2018.

Previous Affiliations:

• Associate, Stites & Harbison PLLC, Nashville, Tennessee 2004-2011

Professional Activities:

• Chairperson, Copyright Society of the South, 2016-2019
• Member, Data Protection Committee, International Trademark Association (INTA), 2020
• Member, Trademark Reporter Committee, INTA, 2018-2019
• Subcommittee Co-Chair, Trademark Scholarship Symposium, Academic Committee, INTA, 2016 – 2018.
• Board of Trustees,Copyright Society of the U.S.A (CSUSA), 2015 – 2018
• Member, Planning Committee, When Trademarks Overlap with Other Rights, INTA (December 2014)
• Chair, Social Media Committee, CSUSA., 2011
• Co-Chair, Southeastern Chapter, CSUSA, 2011
• Member and Past Chair, Nashville Bar Association, Intellectual Property Section
• Member, SOURCE (Women in the Music Business)

Professional Licenses:

• Tennessee
• CIPP / US

More about Tara:

Tara is particularly interested in the ongoing development of privacy laws and how tech companies will have to adapt their data protection practices to stay in compliance. She is a  frequent author, speaker and complainer about the new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) that was enacted in Europe last year and is significantly affecting U.S. companies and their internal policies around handling personal data of customers and business associates. At the end of 2018 she authored a commentary for  The Trademark Reporter® on the problems surrounding using the WHOIS database for trademark infringement investigation after the GDPR required that all the personal information of domain owners in the European Union be redacted. The landscape is changing so quickly that she will almost certainly need to write a follow-up article in the next few months.

She has been a central part of the conversations in the legal profession about the overlap among the various types of intellectual property rights. She was a contributing author for a book on the subject for Oxford University Press  (you can get it here), and has spoken on the topic in London and in Munich.   She has been a guest blogger for IPKat, a London-based intellectual property blog, and has recently.  And of course, she writes when she can for the firm’s own blog.

When she is not practicing law, she can be found working on her 100 year old house in East Nashville, practicing her singing, throwing balls with Miles and Charlie, her rescue dogs, or just enjoying the backyard with her husband Jim.

Earlier Presentations and Publications:

• Author, “Concepts of Use of a Trademark under European Union and United States Trademark Law,” The Trademark Reporter®, 106 TMR No. 6 (November-December 2014)
• Speaker, International Trademark Association, “Baseball, Dictators, and Mean Girls in Short Shorts: When Trademarks Overlap with Publicity Rights”; Munich, Germany (December 2014)
• Speaker, Wyoming Library Association, Copyright and Fair Use, Casper, Wyoming
• Moderator, International Trademark Association Annual Meeting, To Tweet or Not to Tweet: Keeping Students Engaged and Off Social Media During Class (Hong Kong 2014)
• Speaker, Institute of Trademark Attorneys, “Using Copyright to Protect Famous Brands“; London, England (March 2014)
• Contributing Author, “Overlapping Intellectual Property Rights,” Wilkof, Neil and Basheer, Shamnad, eds., Oxford University Press (2012)
• Presenter, “Content Wars: A History of the Recent Battles Between Copyright Owners and Users;” Tennessee Bar Association, June 2012.
• Speaker, “Label and Publishing Basics for Entrepreneurs,” National Association of Recording Merchandisers (NARM) Music Startup Academy, April 2012
• Speaker, “Put It in Writing: Why Good Contracts Matter for Software Developers and Their Clients“; Day Camp 4 Developers, March 2012
• Speaker, “An Introduction to SOPA,”  Tennessee Bar Association LawTech Day, February 2012
• “Appealing IP: Legal Issues Surrounding the Development of an App“; InForma IP Magazine, February 2012
• Moderator, “Could SOPA Break the Internet?”; Innovation Nashville, January 2012
• Technical Editor, Music Copyright Law, by David Moser and Cheryl Slay, Course Technology (2012).
• “Trademarks and Copyrighted Content in Social Media“; Presented in Berlin, Germany , October 10, 2011
• “SpeakerUp!,” speaker how-to presentation for BarCamp Nashville, September 7, 2011
• “Leaving and Launching,” inaugural interview for EntreWoman, Nashville, Tennessee, June 21, 2011
• “Fair Use in a Content-Sharing World,” PodCamp Nashville, Tennessee, March 26, 2011.
• “What Entrepreneurs and Content Creators Need to Know About Business and Intellectual Property” Co-Labs Nashville, Tennessee, June 18, 2010
• “Providing Pro Bono Legal Services After a Disaster,” Webcast for TennBarU, May 12, 2010
• “Broadcaster Performance Royalty Debate – ABA IP Section Committee Report,” ABA Forum on Intellectual Property and Entertainment Law, Committee on Broadcasting, Sound Recordings and Performing