Melise Blakeslee, Esq. CIPP/E is the founding principal of Sequel. She has 30 years of experience emphasizing cybersecurity, data privacy, and the commercialization of technology, software, data, copyrights, trademarks, and trade secrets. Melise is also an experienced IP litigator in the US federal courts protecting IP rights.
Ms. Blakeslee became an entrepreneur when she opened Sequel after leaving the global law firm McDermott Will & Emery, where she had practiced as a capital partner for many years. In founding Sequel, Melise’s goal was to provide a more agile service at a better price point, helping clients focus on business fundamentals by removing legal barriers as quickly as possible, with as little disturbance as possible.
Ms. Blakeslee gained an outstanding international reputation for her involvement in many of the watershed legal cases and disputes at the intersection of intellectual property, technology, and internet law. She successfully protected clients from all types of Internet-based crimes, including copyright and trademark infringement, unfair competition, defamation, deceptive trade practices, and information theft. Some of these notable cases include Lexmark, Inc. v. Static Control Components, Inc, (6th Cir.) (known for its assessment of copyright protections (or lack thereof) in computer code), Religious Technology Center v. Lerma, (EDVA)(known for establishing copyright protection in online works), and hundreds of domain name and trademark disputes on behalf of Victoria’s Secret and other trademark owners.
Her seminal book: Internet Crimes, Torts & Scams: Investigation & Remedies (Oxford University Press, 2010) highlights her years of experience investigating and litigating trademark, copyright, deceptive practices, and trade secret misappropriation on the internet. Her more recent work, Intellectual Property Enforcement in the Digital World, was published in the Spring of 2017 by Matthew Bender/LexisNexis.
Her depth of experience with Internet-related matters naturally led to a specialty practice involving the commercialization of and protecting data of all types. She has advised companies about some of the world’s largest databases for travel data, clearinghouse data, and global membership organizations. A significant part of her practice focuses on helping clients navigate the growing number of complex international data transfer issues. Ms. Blakeslee advises clients on global compliance programs (currently working with the laws of over 60 countries) and data breach management.
In addition to her law firm practice, Melise has served as the outsourced general counsel and data protection officer for various companies, including many in the health, life sciences, clinical trials, and fintech sectors. If you need more than legal advice, Melise can help implement data privacy compliance programs on a consulting basis.
For many years Ms. Blakeslee headed McDermott Will & Emery’s Internet and IT transactions practice. She was also a senior member of the copyright and trademark group.
She is admitted to the bars of New York, Washington, D.C., and to several federal and appellate courts.