Dr. Patrice Lyons

As Corporate Counsel to Corporation for National Research Initiatives (CNRI), she has been involved in the analysis of a wide range of legal and regulatory issues relating to the development of the Internet, including work on the establishment of the Internet Society and the provision of legal support to the Internet Engineering Task Force Secretariat. She has participated in the development of CNRI's Digital Object Architecture, in particular, the Handle System component, so that it may be made available to interested parties around the world. She has also provided advice and guidance to CNRI with respect to a variety of trademark, patent, copyright and other general legal matters. Her interest in the application of copyright and related bodies of law to new technical developments began upon graduation from Georgetown University Law Center (J.D.1969), when she attended Columbia University Law School (1969-70) as the Burton Memorial Fellow in copyright and communications studies. While a legal officer in the Copyright Division of UNESCO (Paris, France; 1971-76), she participated in the preparation of the Convention relating to the Distribution of Programme-Carrying Signals transmitted by space satellite; as a Senior Attorney in the Office of General Counsel of the U.S. Copyright Office, Library of Congress (1976-87), she worked on the drafting of various regulations, including the cable licensing system adopted by the U.S. Congress in 1976, and contributed to the preparation of the Semiconductor Chip Protection Act of 1984. Ms. Lyons was a Partner in the communications law firm of Haley, Bader & Potts (1987-90), and is currently in practice in Washington, D.C. at Law Offices of Patrice Lyons, Chartered.