They’ve Got Next: Intellectual Property Fresh Face Anna Naydonov

Name: Anna Naydonov

Firm: Finnegan Henderson Farabow Garrett & Dunner LLP

Location: Washington, D.C.

Claim to Fame: Successfully defended Dean Guitars and the estate of Darrell Abbott in a copyright case over a lightning bolt graphic on the late Pantera guitarist Darrell Abbott’s “Dean from Hell” guitar.

Age: 36

Anna Naydonov was less than a week into her job at Finnegan Henderson Farabow Garrett & Dunner LLP when she was pulled from a writing class for first-year associates in the firm’s Washington office. She was needed elsewhere.

It was November 2010, and Finnegan was in the middle of defending United Technologies Corp.’s Pratt & Whitney in a patent infringement lawsuit with Rolls-Royce Group Plc over fan technology in jet engines. The stakes were high: Rolls Royce was asking for almost $4 billion in damages.

Naydonov jumped into a cab and headed to the firm’s office in Reston, Va. The following weeks included long days of sifting through stacks of documents, defending depositions, and handling certain filings in the case. Pratt & Whitney eventually beat the lawsuit.

“Because the case was so fast-paced and there was so much going on, I had to take on a lot of responsibility early because it was a necessity,” Naydonov said. “That was a great learning experience for me.”

Today, Naydonov is a partner at the firm and focuses her practice on trademark and false advertising litigation. She has established herself as one of the most experienced female trademark trial lawyers in Washington.

Her resume includes helping Combe Inc. win a bench trial in Virginia federal court in a trademark battle over the Vagisil brand of feminine-care products, and representing Under Armour Inc. in a trademark case against Ass Armor LLC.

She was also part of a team for ABBYY Software Ltd. and Lexmark International Inc. that beat a $260 million patent and trade dress case related to optical character recognition software. Naydonov, a third-year associate at the time, was responsible for, among other things, questioning an important witness at trial.

“I think everybody on the other side was shocked that we had a third-year associate take a witness in a trial of that magnitude and with that exposure,” said Finnegan partner Douglas Rettew, who called Naydonov one of the most talented lawyers that he’s worked with.

“She’s got a brilliant legal mind and is a fierce advocate for the clients,” Rettew said.

More recently, Naydonov led a Finnegan team that won a copyright case over a lightning bolt graphic on the “Dean from Hell” guitar of the late Pantera guitarist Darrell Abbott. The firm represented Dean Guitars and the estate of Abbott, who was shot and killed on stage in 2004.

The plaintiff, Buddy Webster, claimed to own the copyright in the lightning graphic and wanted royalties for guitar models that Dean sold based on Abbott’s guitar. Dean won in Florida federal court, a victory that was affirmed by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit in April.

The appeals court, in a case of first impression, said Webster’s claim was too late. Unlike ordinary copyright infringement claims, which accrue for each infringing act, the court held claims over copyright ownership accrue only once. There is a three-year statute of limitations.

“It was very interesting legally but also the case had so many twists and turns,” Naydonov said. It was discovered, for example, that Webster didn’t paint the lightning graphic, and Naydonov worked with the person who actually did to assign the graphic to Abbott’s estate.

Naydonov attributes her successes to mentorship from other attorneys at the firm, including Rettew. Now, she is looking to keep that tradition going, taking an active role in mentoring younger attorneys. She was selected by associates last year as the firm’s “Trademark and Copyright Partner Mentor of the Year.”

“We have to mentor by actually giving opportunities to associates starting at a very junior level,” she said.