Kelly Klaus

Kelly M. Klaus is a litigation partner in the San Francisco and Los Angeles offices of Munger, Tolles & Olson. Mr. Klaus’s practice is focused on copyright and related litigation, including antitrust and class action litigation. He has represented the major motion picture studios, the major recorded music companies and many other entities in some of their highest-profile litigation matters in recent years.

In addition to litigating, Mr. Klaus regularly counsels clients on copyright, software licensing and other intellectual property issues. The Daily Journal has repeatedly named Mr. Klaus among the leading intellectual property lawyers in California, and he is consistently ranked as a leading litigator in Media & Entertainment by Chambers USA.

In 2017, Mr. Klaus was recognized among the Most Influential Intellectual Property Lawyers by the Los Angeles Business Journal and as a Media & Entertainment MVP by Law360. Mr. Klaus was named one of Hollywood’s top 100 lawyers in The Hollywood Reporter’s “Power Lawyers” report in 2017 and 2018. Mr. Klaus was also recognized among the top attorneys in the entertainment business in Variety’s 2018 Legal Impact Report.

Actively engaged in the copyright community, Mr. Klaus is a member of the Los Angeles Copyright Society, the Copyright Society of the United States, the Copyright Alliance’s Legal Advisory Board and the USC Intellectual Property Institute’s Planning Committee. He is a frequent speaker at programs on copyright issues. Mr. Klaus has taught appellate advocacy at Stanford Law School, and he served on Stanford Law School’s Board of Visitors. He is a past member of the board of governors of the Association of Business Trial Lawyers in Los Angeles.

Key Representations:

• FX Networks and Pacific 2.1 Entertainment Group in obtaining dismissal under California’s anti-SLAPP statute of a defamation lawsuit brought by actress Olivia de Havilland involving the program “Feud: Bette and Joan.”
• Disney, Lucasfilm, Fox and Warner Bros. in a copyright infringement and circumvention action against VidAngel.
• TMZ and Warner Bros. in copyright litigation arising out of TMZ’s posting of a video of a famous actor and recording artist discussing the music of another recording artist.
• The National Fire Protection Association, a major standard-setting organization, in litigation challenging whether standards lose their copyright protection when government bodies incorporate them by reference.
• Activision-Blizzard in its successful defense against a right of publicity action filed by former Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega arising out of a Noriega character in a “Call of Duty” game set against the backdrop of the 1989 U.S. invasion of Panama.
• Advising and representing clients in software licensing and computer software infringement matters.
• Electronic Arts in copyright litigation alleging that Zynga’s online social game “The Ville” infringed EA’s copyrighted game “Sims Social.”
• Green Hills Software in successfully defending a five-month arbitration alleging copyright infringement relating to application program interfaces for computer programs.

Education:

• Stanford Law School (J.D., 1992) Order of the Coif; Stanford Law Review, 1990-1992
• UCLA (B.A., 1989)

Bar Admissions : California