Sam Byassee has extensive experience in computer-related legal issues involving counseling clients, negotiating hardware and software contracts and license agreements and litigating contract performance disputes and various intellectual property issues. His clients range from nationally recognized companies as Digital Equipment Corporation and Automatic Data Processing to developers and programmers of software systems to providers of Internet services to vendors and vendees of general purpose or vertical market hardware and software systems in many industry segments. He has represented traditional and electronic media companies involving First Amendment and defamation issues. Also he often speaks at legal seminars and programs on computer and intellectual property issues, including multimedia law and on-line communications.

For clients such as software vendors and custom programming houses, Mr. Byassee has handled negotiations of software agreements for development and installation of software systems and has conducted audits of intellectual property rights and of existing standard agreements utilized by these clients. In addition, Mr. Byassee has reviewed, drafted and negotiated agreements involving electronic communications, including Electronic Data Interchange master agreements, on-line service agreements, and agreements securing the privacy and security of information. He also counsels clients concerning the rights and potential liabilities arising from the electronic transfer of information, as well as communication and interaction in cyberspace.

Mr. Byassee has handled litigation or potential litigation for both vendors and vendees concerning disputes over the development, installation and proper functioning of hardware and software systems, as well as the proper scope of the software license granted. Mr. Byassee’s computer-related intellectual property litigation has included the existence, scope and infringement of software copyrights and patents, interference with business relations and unfair trade practices in the marketing of software systems, trade secret issues, and Lanham Act/trademark claims and grey marketing of computer goods.

Mr. Byassee has been a partner in Smith Helms Mulliss & Moore since 1990. He clerked for the Honorable Eugene A. Gordon, Senior United States District Judge, Middle District of North Carolina, 1982-83. He serves as Chair of the Multimedia and Interactive Technologies Committee, American Bar Association Section of Science and Technology, North Carolina Bar Association Computer Access to Public Records Task Force; Co-chair of the North Carolina Computer Law Round Table; Section Council, North Carolina Bar Association Intellectual Property Section. Mr. Byassee co-authored Questions About Software Protection: A Legal Primer (N.C. Bar Association, 1993). He served as author of Jurisdiction of Cyberspace: Applying Real World Precedent to the Virtual Community, 30 Wake Forest Law Review, 197 (1995).

2800 Two Hannover Square, Raleigh, North Carolina 27601

Telephone: (919) 755-8788 Facsimile: (919) 755-8800

E-mail: Sam_Byassee@shmm.com

Computers and Software, Intellectual Property, First Amendment and Media, Litigation.

Vanderbilt University, J.D., 1982

University of Tennessee, B.A., cum laude 1973