EFF is pleased to welcome our newest staff attorney, Daniel Nazer.  He joins our intellectual property team thanks to a generous donation from Mark Cuban, and will focus on an area of increasing importance in our digital world: patent reform.

As we’ve seen with patent controversy after patent controversy over the last year, software patents and their egregious misuse are hurting both technology innovators and technology users.  EFF’s work in this area is wide-ranging, from our Defend Innovation project, to our Patent Busting Project, to our long-standing involvement in patent litigation.  Daniel will bring key skills to our work, previously serving as a Residential Fellow at Stanford Law School’s Center for Internet and Society.  He also practiced at Keker & Van Nest, LLP, where he represented technology clients in patent and antitrust litigation.  Additionally, Daniel is the author of The Tragicomedy of the Surfer’s Commons and Conflict and Solidarity: The Legacy of Jeff D.  We are so glad that Daniel has joined EFF in this important fight to fix the software patent system.

Also joining EFF recently is Staff Attorney Nate Cardozo.  But if it seems like Nate is an old hand here, that’s because he is.  Nate was previously an Open Government Legal Fellow at EFF, focusing on Freedom of Information Act issues.  Then after two years of honing his litigation skills at Drinker Biddle & Reath, he rejoined us at EFF to work on the civil liberties team.  One of the cases that Nate is working on since returning to EFF is Chevron v. Donziger, where he’s fighting to preserve the private information of dozens of environmental activists, bloggers, journalists, lawyers, interns, and volunteers who all participated in electronic discussions about potentially illegal activity by Chevron.  In addition to his work at EFF, Nate teaches first-year legal writing and moot court at U.C. Hastings.  We are so glad that he has decided to bring his formidable skills back to EFF.  Welcome Nate and Daniel!