Tuesday’s Free Intellectual Property Breakfast Club on Retrans Consent a ‘Must Attend’ Event

WASHINGTON, June 4, 2010 – BroadbandBreakfast.com on Friday announced the addition of two new panelists – Toni Cook Bush of Skadden Arps and Matt Polka of the American Cable Association – to its FREE June 8th Intellectual Property Breakfast Club event.

The panel, to be held at Clyde’s of Gallery Place at 707 7th Street NW, in Washington, is certain to be the “must attend” event on this increasingly hot topic of “New Retransmission Consent Battles and Licensing Video Content.” The panel will be moderated by Sarah Lai Stirland, Assistant Managing Editor of BroadbandBreakfast.com, and a veteran reporter on intellectual property- and technology-related matters. Register now!

The event continues BroadbandBreakfast.com’s new monthly breakfast series on controversies involving copyright, trademark and patent-related subjects, launched in May 2010 with a panel on the Google Book Search Settlement. Video from the May breakfast is available here. On July 13, the series continues with a new panel discussing the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement.

Panelists for the June 8 event include:

• Antoinette Cook Bush, Partner, Communications and Legislative Matters, Skadden Arps
• Michael Calabrese, Vice President, New America Foundation Director of the Wireless Future Program
• Chad E. Gutstein, Executive Vice President, Ovation
• John K. Hane, Counsel, Communications Practice Group, Pillsbury
• Fernando Laguarda, Vice President, External Affairs and Policy Counselor, Time Warner Cable
• Matt Polka, President & CEO, American Cable Association

The group will discuss how retransmission consent rules, which were intended to level the playing field between local broadcasters and large cable operators. Now, decades later, how some argue that the rules are a significant hurdle to a smoothly operating marketplace, with competing distribution platforms (cable, DBS, telecom) and distribution business models (linear, on-demand, internet).

The Intellectual Property Breakfast Club is sponsored by the Intel Corporation, Public Knowledge, and Time Warner Cable.

This event is free, on the record and open to the public. Registration is available at http://ipbreakfast.eventbrite.com.