Judy Jennison

Judy Jennison is an IP litigator and counselor with deep experience in applying copyright and trade secret law to new and evolving technologies. 

For more than three decades, Judy has helped shape the law governing how copyright applies to new technologies. As lead counsel in Kelly v. Arriba Soft, she secured a landmark Ninth Circuit fair use ruling holding that a search engine’s display of thumbnail images was transformative and lawful. That decision became an early and influential precedent for applying copyright principles to internet technologies and helped lay the groundwork for the Ninth Circuit’s later analysis in the Perfect 10 cases. She has also worked on a number of significant precedent-setting cases, including Nintendo v. Galoob, MGM v. Grokster, Adobe v. Southern Software, Atari v. Nintendo, and United States v. Microsoft. 

Today, Judy’s practice includes strategic client counseling, client relationship leadership, and innovation in legal service delivery. She was the founding chair of Ashurst Perkins Coie’s Trade Secrets Group, a co-chair of the firm’s Innovation Working Group, and a co-chair of its Diversity, Inclusion, and Opportunity Committee. She currently serves as co-chair of the firm’s Technology Sector. 

Judy spent eight years in-house at Microsoft Corporation, where she led the company's Copyright and Trade Secret Group, served as associate general counsel for the Microsoft Office business, and handled significant aspects of the company's worldwide antitrust compliance efforts.