Jake L. Bryant

Jake Bryant is a member of the firm’s General Commercial group where his practice focuses on intellectual property, technology, privacy, branding/media rights, entertainment and the arts, rights of publicity, and corporate matters. He also assists clients with dealmaking and procedures related to the development and integration of large language models (LLMs) and other forms of generative artificial intelligence. Prior to joining Gentry Locke, Jake served as Of Counsel at a boutique intellectual property law firm and was a research assistant for the Center for Intellectual Property x Innovation Policy (now the IP Policy Institute).

Jake earned his J.D. from Liberty University School of Law where he was the Notes & Comments Editor of the Liberty University Law Review, Vice President of the Liberty Law Intellectual Property Clinic, Executive Chair of the Business & Transactional Law Society, and was a national finalist in the 2023 Saul Lefkowitz Moot Court Tournament hosted by the International Trademark Association. He received his LL.M. in Intellectual Property from the George Mason University Antonin Scalia Law School, with a focus on artificial intelligence and law & economics. Jake’s published scholarship focuses on the intersection of intellectual property and emerging technologies.

• A quick handshake
• Experience / Education
• Involvement
• Library

• Years of professional landscape photography
  
• Foreign countries visited...Ireland, Romania, Turks & Caicos
  
• Movies watched
  

• What is your favorite thing about your job?

  I love helping businesses of any nature realize that their intellectual property is extremely valuable. From helping entities protect their names and goodwill to helping them navigate the often murky waters of IP and technology agreements, my favorite part of my job is making sure your intangible assets are as secure as your personal property.

• What is your favorite thing to do when you’re not working?

  I love photography, golf, reading, and film. I am an avid movie-watcher, anything from classics (Casablanca is a personal favorite) to science fiction or dramas. I am a huge fan of the authors Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Tolkien, and Norman Maclean, as well as the Irish musician, Dermot Kennedy. My great passions, however, lie in photography and fiction writing.

• What life lesson do you think we all should follow?

  Pursue righteousness. The ends rarely justify the means and too many things affect our outcomes in life. The best thing we can do is try to live with good intentions and act justly with what we can control. If we remain stalwart in the endless pursuit of loving and living well, peace usually finds us.

Education

• George Mason University Antonin Scalia Law School, LL.M. in Intellectual Property Law
• Liberty University School of Law, J.D.
• Roanoke College, B.B.A.

Experience

• Managed the registration, maintenance, or development of over 400 federally registered trademarks
• Office actions and appeals with the USPTO and Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (T.T.A.B.)
• Copyright registrations, DMCA enforcement, and copyright infringement litigation
• Litigated and helped to favorably resolve various intellectual property, technology, non-compete, and website-oriented ADA disputes in districts across the 4^th, 7^th, 9^th, and 11^th
• SaaS and data processing agreements
• Development and termination of IT managed and cloud-based services agreements
• Agreements covering the development and integration of large language models and other forms of generative artificial intelligence.
• Privacy policy development and data breach response
• Branding and entertainment
• Media rights deals, rights of publicity
• Trade secrets and unfair competition
• Assisted with the development, facilitation, and execution of multimillion dollar equity and asset acquisition deals

Affiliations

• Member, American Intellectual Property Law Association
  Copyright Law Committee, Generative AI Task Force
• Member, Federalist Society
• Member, Christian Legal Society
• Swing For A Cure Board Member, American Cancer Society
• Board of Directors, Botetourt County Chamber of Commerce

Admissions

• Virginia State Bar
• U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia
• Authorized Trademark Attorney, United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO)

Published Work

• Author, A new trademark catfight: Puma opposes Tiger Woods’ Sun Day Red trademark application, The Trademark Lawyer (January 2025).
• Author, Auctorem Ex Machina: A Case for Human Copyright Authorship in Works Created Using Generative Artificial Intelligence, AIPLA Quarterly Journal (October 2024).
• Contributor, Commentary in Response to the Official Inquiry of the U.S. Copyright Office Regarding Copyright and Generative AI, American Intellectual Property Law Association (AIPLA) (October 2023).
• Author, Dancing in the Dark: Exploring the Collision of Copyright with NFTs & the Works They Represent, 17 Liberty University Law Review 71 (September 2022).

• Five Ways Your Business is Probably Affected by Intellectual Property Law
  Articles
  Oct 2024
• Reviewing Copyright & Generative AI: The Good, the Bad, and the Unanswered
  Articles
  Jul 2024
• Virginia’s Right to Privacy and its Impacts on Marketing
  Articles
  Jul 2024
• What’s in a Name: Supreme Court Upholds Constitutionality of Federal Trademark Statute Against Free-Speech Claims in Vidal v. Elster
  Articles
  Jul 2024
• Gentry Locke Welcomes Intellectual Property and Business Law Attorney Jake L. Bryant to its Roanoke Office
  News
  Jun 2024