Before responding to an Autodesk audit request, it is important to understand your legal rights and protect your legal situation. The first step is to understand what Autodesk is looking for, and then look for experienced legal counsel to work on a strategy to mitigate the potential negative consequences for your business. Keene has nearly three decades of experience in the technology and legal industry, including 11 years at Autodesk, and returns to the company after serving as General Counsel at Unity Technologies. In these roles, Ruth Ann advised on critical legal and regulatory issues, intellectual property, data protection, and mergers and acquisitions related to business transformation. Prior to that, Keene advised various companies in the technology transactions practice at Morrison & Foerster, LLP. “I am honored to assume the role of General Counsel at Autodesk and look forward to leading Autodesk`s world-class legal, government and public policy team,” said Keene. “Coming back to Autodesk is like a homecoming for me and I look forward to supporting Autodesk`s innovation and growth as a technology leader in software design and development.” Autodesk Inc. has brought back one of its former in-house lawyers to take over the legal department of the publicly traded design software company. The list goes on. These licenses each have their own rules. Some of these are “student versions” (such as Fusion 360, Inventor Professional, Revit, 3ds Max, or Maya), where the End User License Agreement requires the user to be a student, instructor, teacher, or part of the Autodesk Assistant program.
Otherwise, the use will likely be considered illegal and you`ll likely receive a letter of formal notice accusing your company of being an intentional copyright infringer (with the $150,000 per counterfeit copyrighted work, as well as the threat to pay their attorneys` fees). It`s not a pleasant situation you`re in. SAN FRANCISCO, June 16, 2022 /PRNewswire/ — Autodesk, Inc. (NASDAQ: ADSK) today announced the appointment of Ruth Ann Keene as Chief Legal Officer. Keene is based at the company`s San Francisco headquarters and leads Autodesk`s global legal affairs, advises the CEO and board of directors, and oversees Autodesk`s government affairs and public policy. However, it is best to consult a lawyer at this time to avoid affecting your legal situation and forcing yourself to make an unnecessarily high settlement. As the new leading attorney for the San Francisco-based firm, Ruth Ann Keene now leads Autodesk`s global legal affairs while advising CEO Andrew Anagnost and the Board of Directors. She also oversees government affairs and the company`s public order.
If you haven`t received an audit notification yet, but haven`t done an internal analysis of your company`s software usage, you can consider it immediately to capture potentially illegitimate software and avoid penalties for copyright infringement and attorneys` fees. Ruth Ann Keene, who described her new role as a leading lawyer as a “homecoming,” had previously worked in Autodesk`s legal department for more than a decade during her career. 1. Contact your intellectual property lawyer (i.e. us) BEFORE you even speak to the software company or its legal representatives (what you say could be used against you) and let us review your case with a FREE initial consultation. Our consultations will give you a basic overview of what we do and some of your potential problems and defensive measures. Please note that we will not provide you with specific legal advice until we have been engaged and provide a detailed roadmap on how to guide your case through the audit process without prior mandate. So you have nothing to lose, and we can discuss your case in general and discuss our predictable fixed fee service (which is available in most, but not all) cases).
Not seeking legal advice can be very expensive: Many companies that responded to Autodesk before conducting a thorough investigation or seeking legal advice received a surprisingly high settlement offer from Autodesk. This blog is not specific legal advice and should not be used as a basis for making decisions to move forward in your software audit case with Autodesk. This blog discusses some general areas of law that are of interest to business owners, engineers, architects, surveyors, students, and other designers who use one of the many Autodesk products, including AutoCAD, to manage and grow their business. No. If you use Autodesk software, you must use it in accordance with the license agreement, which means that you must first legally purchase a copy or subscription before generating items used in your business to make a financial profit. We are an experienced law firm that knows how to negotiate agreements that solve your licensing problems privately and confidentially. This is especially important if you are a publicly traded company or about to make an initial public offering (IPO). Problems can also arise after a merger of two companies that may have ignored due diligence, whether or not the acquired company has all of its software licenses under control or not).
“I am very pleased to welcome Ruth Ann back to Autodesk and look forward to her valuable advice and expertise as the company`s General Counsel,” said Andrew Anagnost, CEO and President of Autodesk. “Her extensive experience advising platform and technology companies, her innovative approach to legal issues, and her familiarity with Autodesk make her a unique fit for the needs of our customers, partners, employees and communities at large.” 2. Then, once selected, we will investigate your possible objections to copyright infringement. It depends on your case and there are many types of defenses that occur in software license cases. While you probably shouldn`t throw away the letter and simply ignore it (you don`t want to start a lawsuit by not fixing the problem and risk the liability of the company`s officers and directors), it may make sense to work with their lawyers as much as possible and try to find a solution if you have unlicensed software, that you should have paid. However, keep in mind that this is only one of the possible answers, and you should always investigate your possible objections and consult with legal counsel before making the decision to admit software bottlenecks. If you openly admit to copyright infringement (e.g. “Yes, I downloaded pirated software from eBay” or “Yes, we have seven copies of Autodesk that we received with a “crack code”), you can usually expect the IP lawyers you deal with to become aggressive about the amounts they want to pay.
So, at the beginning, I will say that it is important to hire a copyright consultant and explore all the legal defense options before dealing with these cases yourself. We offer affordable fee structures that allow you to run your business while we address your software compliance issues.