Tom Rubin is Chief Counsel for Intellectual Property Strategy at Microsoft, where he leads the company’s copyright, trademark and trade secret group. Tom spearheads complex product development, licensing, marketing, enforcement and global policy strategies across Microsoft’s business divisions, ranging from Windows and Microsoft Office to Bing, MSN and Xbox.
At Microsoft since 1998, Tom is an internationally recognized expert on legal, policy and business issues related to creative content, technological innovation and the Internet. He has led several collaborative efforts with leaders in the technology and creative communities, including product partnerships, policy initiatives, amicus briefs and the landmark User Generated Content Principles.
A graduate of Yale University and Stanford Law School, Tom’s career has centered on the intersection of technology and content. Prior to Microsoft, he was an Assistant United States Attorney in the Southern District of New York, where he was one of the country’s first prosecutors of computer, electronic and intellectual property crimes. In private practice at Debevoise & Plimpton in New York, he represented companies such as Sony and Time Inc. on matters related to new technologies. And prior to law school, Tom worked in the newsroom of The New York Times and was a stringer for the Associated Press.
Tom has testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee and is a frequent speaker about technology, innovation and content at Stanford, Harvard, Yale, Berkeley, Seoul National University, the Smithsonian Institution and elsewhere. He has addressed many leading legal, business and governmental organizations, including the American Bar Association, Intellectual Property Owners Association, Copyright Society of the USA, International Copyright Forum in Beijing, World Intellectual Property Organization, Association of American Publishers, Association of Online Publishers UK, European Publishers Council and World Association of Newspapers.
Tom has received numerous honors for his work, including the Los Angeles County Bar Association’s Corporate ADR Award, the U.S. Department of Justice’s Director’s Award for Superior Performance as an Assistant United States Attorney and the top award from the U.S. Customs Service. In 2006 he was named the Uri and Caroline Bauer Distinguished Visitor at Cardozo Law School.
Tom clerked for Judge Leonard B. Sand in the Southern District of New York and Chief Judge James L. Oakes in the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. He currently serves on the Board of Visitors at Stanford Law School and on the Board of Advisors of CCH’s Guide to Computer Law. He has been a fellow at the Stanford Center for Internet and Society, and in Spring 2011 he will teach a seminar at Stanford on Copyright, the Internet and Industry.