Profile of JIPLP writers: Peter A. Jabaly

In this, the second in an occasional series of features on contributors to JIPLP (click here for the first, featuring Charley Macedo), we introduce Peter Anthony Jabaly, a Washington, DC attorney and graduate of Rutgers Law School. Like Charley, Peter has frequently contributed Current Intelligence notes to JIPLP, as well as a recent article.

Peter tells us that he is passionate about IP.  As a former student of Michael A. Carrier, one of the most highly respected IP attorneys and professors around, Pete (as his friends affectionately call him) is most interested in copyright and trade marks. However, he isn’t shy about taking on difficult patent issues on behalf of Zero Waste, Inc. where he assists the renewable energy firm in patent licensing issues and other complex corporate matters such as restructuring and government affairs.  Dealing with the commercial phase of the patent protection process, Peter approaches the inventor to either taking a licence or buying the technology outright, systematically going through the valuation, negotiation, and drafting of the agreement.

Another side to Peter's professional activity involves representing indigent clients in pro bono cases in a variety of fields, finding consumer advocacy the best way for him to give back to his community and to hone his negotiation skills. He first acquired an interest in negotiation when he represented his law school in the Willem C. Vis International Commercial Arbitration Moot held each year in Vienna, Austria. One of his most loved books is about negotiation: Roger Fisher and William L. Ury’s Getting to YES: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In.

Peter also works closely on a pro bono basis with a non-profit organization that aims to educate U.S. policymakers in the crucial role they can play in building a peaceful future for the millions who live in Lebanon and Israel. As a graduate of George Mason University with a B.A. degree in government & international politics, he remains very interested in foreign affairs and has also passed the State Department’s notoriously difficult Foreign Service Officer test in the hope that he may serve his country abroad in the not-so-distant future.

Peter enjoys traveling whenever he can. His favourite destinations are Eastern Europe, the Middle East and the southeastern United States. Peter lived in Paris for a semester during his junior year at University and visits every year to participate in the Sorbonne reunions. Being trilingual he hopes that, with the broadening internationalization of the IP field, he’ll be able to utilize his linguistic and cultural fluency to increase IP protection and awareness in areas of the globe that have ordinarily resisted the trend. A sort of niche interest is IP protection (or its lack) in the Middle East. Peter is visiting Beirut, Lebanon, this December to get a better sense of the landscape. There, he will be meeting with a number of IP firms to discuss just that.

Traveling as a tourist is never appealing; instead, Peter likes to visit friends he has acquired over his years abroad. Whether in Warsaw or Paris, these friends provide an insight that he finds invaluable. Many of them are attorneys who generously offer their views on the developments in their own jurisdictions. Peter has, admittedly, learned much from the comparative study of the law.

When Peter isn’t problem-solving, he’s relaxing with a good pick-up game of soccer. He likes watching Champions and Premier League games when he can, but it's difficult with the time difference. In his other free time, he’s driving to the Shenandoah National Park with some friends for a hike, white-water rafting, or some fishing. He’s recently made the purchase of a lifetime -- a motorbike -- taking his Ducati Monster whenever the elements allow. He enjoys the feeling he gets when he is able to navigate smoothly through the heavy traffic in the District of Columbia.